Even the great Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez branded it a “boring fight” after he once again became boxing’s undisputed world super-middleweight champion by outpointing William Scull in Saudi Arabia on Saturday night.
The PPV megastar, a heavy favourite to add Scull’s IBF strap to his WBC, WBA, WBO and Ring magazine titles, duly got the job down in a fight that took place at around 0630 Sunday Riyadh time to cater for his fans back home in Mexico and the US. The show aired live on DAZN PPV.
But apart from once again annexing all the belts in the 168lbs weight class, there was little to report on – with the post-punch stats telling the story of a fight where only one man really came to win. Scull (now 23-1) appeared content with boxing on the outside and basic damage limitation.
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The most entertaining action came after the final bell when Canelo faced off with Terence Crawford in the ring to officially announce their September 12 superfight in Las Vegas.
There was little wonder Canelo (now 63-2-2) struggled to smile as the scores of 115-113, 116-112 and 119-109 were read out in the arena, it was a frustrating night for the former P4P king from Guadalajara.
Canelo vs Scull punch stats
Compubox, the bible of fight stats, released its Canelo vs Scull numbers in the aftermath of 12 rounds of largely boredom, and they did not make for pretty reading.
The round-by-round numbers were not from the final round at The Masters, they were a boxing match – Scull landed single digits in ALL 12 ROUNDS while Canelo did the same in 11.
That wasn’t the only nasty picture painted inside the ring on Saturday night, there were some historically bad stats as well.
Canelo and Scull combined for the fewest punches thrown in a 12-round fight in the Compubox era, according to the stats company’s Twitter feed. That’s punches thrown – not landed – a desultory 445 to beat the 459 attempted by Deontay Wilder and Joseph Parker in their December 2023 showdown.
The overall numbers had Canelo landing 56 of just 152 punches thrown (36.8%) with Scull hitting home with 55 of 293 (18.8%).
Canelo vs Scull highlights
For what it’s worth, DAZN did manage to put together a highlights package and you can watch it here:
