With the controversial split draw from the Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin fight, comes the immediate blame being put on the Nevada State Athletic Commission for their selection of judge Adalaide Byrd.
Byrd's 118-110 score in favor of Canelo brought about a massive wave of criticism to the judge and many are now questioning why the commission even allowed Byrd to participate in the fight as an official judge. Bob Bennett, the executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, commented on the controversial score after the fight ended.
"Adalaide, in my estimation, is an outstanding judge," Bennett said. "She's done over 115 title fights and/or elimination bouts. She does a great deal of our training. Takes a lot of our judges under her wing. I think being a judge is a very challenging position. Unfortunately, Adalaide was a little wide. I'm not making any excuses. I think she's an outstanding judge, and in any business, sometimes you have a bad day. She saw the fight differently. It happens."
Bennett also spoke with Chris Mannix of Yahoo Sports and said he had "full confidence" in Byrd.
Byrd has had an extensive history with creating controversial scores for high-profile fights. She was the only judge to have Amir Khan winning by the time Canelo knocked Khan out in 2016. She is also known in the MMA community as being the one judge who had Melvin Guillard as the winner in his UFC 155 fight against Jamie Varner.
The lopsided card in favor of Canelo was the only one out of the three cards that had Canelo winning. Dave Moretti had Golovkin up 115-113 while Don Trella scored the fight a 114-114 draw, with the final result of the fight being a split draw. As a result, Golovkin retains his WBA, WBC and IBF middleweight titles.
For more on the fight, check out the Fightful podcast where Fightful managing editor Sean Ross Sapp and Carlos Toro dissect the fight and the controversial score at this link.
