WBO middleweight world champion Billy Joe Saunders saw no issue with Canelo Alvarez securing a close twelve round majority decision victory over Gennady Golovkin to capture the WBC, WBA, IBO middleweight titles.
Golovkin (38-1-1, 34 KOs) suffered the first defeat of his pro career at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Canelo (50-1-2, 34 KOs) got the win with scores of 114-114, 115-113 and 115-113.
The two middleweight fought to a controversial twelve round split draw in September 2017.
There was little controversy over the outcome of the second meeting.
Most insiders at ringside scored the contest as a draw - with others tabbing a 7-5 card for either Golovkin or Canelo.
Prior to the fight, Saunders had urged Golovkin to score a knockout - or face the consequences of a decision loss.
Unlike the first bout, where Canelo moved for most of the bout, he was aggressive from the very first round and pushed the pace of the fight by coming forward and throwing punches.
Saunders was hoping for a win by Golovkin - because he believes Canelo will never face him in the ring.
Due to the close nature of the fight, Saunders believes the outcome was reasonable.
“It was close. When you’re champion you can’t just get pipped at the post, you’ve really gotta get it took off you in my opinion. I personally think that, take the belts away, you could flip a coin and you couldn’t really argue,” said Saunders to Talk Sports' Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast.
“But with Golovkin being champion, you can say maybe that warranted a draw more than the first one. It is what it is. It’s boxing at the end of the day, it wasn’t a blatant robbery. It was a close fight and you can’t really cry over it, put it that way.”
Saunders returns on October 20th, when he face mandatory challenger Demetrius Andrade in Boston.