Los Angeles: Talks for a rematch between undefeated middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin and Mexican boxing hero Canelo Alvarez are expected to begin in the coming days, the US media reported on Saturday.
Golovkin, who was making his Las Vegas debut, and Alvarez fought to a draw on Saturday in an evenly-matched bout that lived up to its hype as a showdown between the top two middleweights in the world.
Both the 27-year-old challenger Alavarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs) and the 35-year-old Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) said they wanted a rematch.
“It seemed like everyone came away from that fight with an unsatisfied feeling,” Tom Loeffler, of K2 Promotions, which oversees Golovkin’s fights, told the Los Angeles Daily News.
Until his last two fights, which both went the distance, Golovkin had been jackhammering his way through the middleweight division. In March, he showed he could go the distance and win over Daniel Jacobs but their 12-round fight snapped a string of 23 consecutive knockouts for Golovkin.
Golovkin and Alvarez now look set to rule the resurgent middleweight division for years after their slugfest ended in a stalemate.
Judge Don Trella had it 114-114 while Dave Moretti scored it 115-113 in favour of Golovkin of Kazakhstan.
Golovkin got his first taste of Nevada-style judging in his Sin City debut, when the third judge, Adalaid Byrd, scored the nail-biter 118-110 in favour of Alvarez.
Meanwhile, Joseph Parker beat Hughie Fury by a majority points decision to retain his World Boxing Organisation (WBO) heavyweight title at the Manchester Arena on Saturday.
The New Zealander endured a frustrating night and did not look confident ahead of the scores being announced, but the judges scored it to Parker by 118-110, 118-110 with the other seeing it a 114-114 draw.
Mandatory challenger Fury, 23 last Monday, suffered his professional first defeat in 21 fights while a second title defence for Parker improved his undefeated record to 24 wins, 18 by KO.
After a scrappy fight, two judges scoring it 10 rounds to two for Parker seemed generous as the Kiwi had not seriously troubled the challenger.
“I feel I won the fight, he put up a great fight,” said Parker.
