The best fight no one saw and rewatching GGG-Canelo

Early yesterday morning at 3 AM, while most of the country slept, I was treated to live coverage of what might be my selection for the fight of the year from Nagoya, Japan as Kosei Tanaka defeated Sho Kimura via majority decision to take the WBO flyweight crown from Kimura.
I had Kimura a 115-113 winner, but so many of these rounds were close, I had no problem with the decision going Tanaka's way.
I can only hope that we see a rematch between the two and that it is soon!

I watched the HBO replay of the Gennady Golovkin-Canelo Alvarez match and I didn't have a lot of change in my scorecard other than my original card of 116-113, (7-4-1 in rounds), moved to 115-113
as I decided that the round that I scored even when I watched the first time, should have been given to Canelo when I wanted to make a decision one way or the other.

That means on my card, I gave every close round to Canelo Alvarez and I still have Gennady Golovkin as the winner.
The wrong man (Alvarez) won a close, exciting fight, and even though the operative word is close. the result still meant the wrong team lost.
In baseball, a game can be exciting and well-played and wind up 3-2 as a close game, but the winner is still the winner and the loser can be proud of the effort and performance, but they still are on the short end of the scoreboard

As for HBO's broadcast.
Normally, I'd say the less said the better, but this was a special kind of broadcast- as in the type that should have featured Vince McMahon and Bruno Sammartino extolling the virtues of Ricky Steamboat as Jesse "the Body" Ventura pointed out the positives of whatever nasty bad guy happened to be pounding a hapless performer at this particular minute.

All of that sounds like a writer's hyperbole, but here's the issue for me.
HBO didn't have a Ventura to represent Golovkin.
Jim Lampley tried to call it down the middle, but as the blow by blow man's job to always be fair, Lampley isn't offering analysis of why things are happening or how he sees the fight developing, his job is to describe what is happening.
Even still, Lampley appeared to be (during the fight) to trying to thread the needle that his network has set up involving their last true cash cow that the one-time bully of the boxing business has remaining in a time of spreading boxing back into various platforms and didn't always seem to call it as it happens.
Lampley would somewhat redeem himself (although his saying the round 12 that almost all scored for Golovkin was difficult to score- it was not) with his editorial on his "Fight Game" show that talked about the various problems in boxing that come to light whenever these decisions in big fights pop up, but sometimes these statements come too little and too late for an audience that feels ripped off and cheated of the ending that observers feel should have happened.
Even still, Lampley dropped Golovkin completely out of his top five in his "Pound for Pound" despite the controversy to lift Alvarez to third.
While I certainly could understand Alvarez being rated over Golovkin because of the official win, dropping him out of the top five seems like a stretch, especially behind Mikey Garcia, who has been more workmanlike than wizardlike in his two most recent wins.

For the small issues, one might have with Lampley, who is being pushed for his longtime position as the best blow by blow man in the game by Brian Kenny of DAZN, the far more serious issues are in the color analyst roles in which are receiving more vitriol than any commentators in boxing than I can remember in years.

Roy Jones Jr has always been a commentator that was more about promoting himself than one skilled in analyzing the fight in the ring, but his work of late seems to have transitioned into a role of providing "Roy/Pensacola/More Roy" stories and rooting for the fighter that HBO has the most interest in.
That's part of what HBO has always wanted in the role through the years moving from Ray Leonard to George Foreman to now Jones and freelancer Andre Ward, so that's nothing new as far as the expectations from the front office.

The surprise has been the transition from the sage writer Larry Merchant to Max Kellerman.
Kellerman was thought of by many (including myself) as being the natural successor to Merchant and despite a slightly clumsy replacement process, Kellerman's knowledge of the history of the sport was thought to be a great fit.
It hasn't turned out that way as Kellerman's affinity for a certain type of boxer that has existed dating back to his first exposure on ESPN has turned into what has become an out and out bias against fighters that not only have a different style but ones that actually fight against fighters of Kellerman's preferred style.
Kellerman has become so strident and blatant in his rooting for these fighters (Most notably Andre Ward, who he feels compelled to mention multiple times in each fight, whether Ward is announcing the bout or not) that it is becoming a massive hindrance to the broadcast and a major repellent to the audience.
While I was a fan of Kellerman and still would not at all knock him for a lack of knowledge of the sport that he covers, Kellerman has become part of the debate-oriented television style that has become so prevalent in both sports and news coverage.
Kellerman's opinion usually does not divert from those of Jones, but he seems to be looking for a reason to shout and exchange with- even if his usual foils at ESPN are nowhere to found.
The foil seems to have become the viewer, who often seems to wish that they could rail back at Kellerman.

HBO once had the best of almost everything in boxing production from graphics, talent both on and off the screen, and the best of the boxers themselves.
Now, the Network of Champions seems to have slipped past their prime like a once-great boxer that keeps trying to survive through gimmicks and guile against younger and more innovative opponents that read Showtime, DAZN, and ESPN on their marquee's.
It's always sad to watch any athlete go on past their prime and continue with nothing left.
It's almost as sad to see a once-great network do the same...