Teddy Atlas gets extremely heated, calls Canelo-GGG a product of corruption

Teddy Atlas almost had a live meltdown in the aftermath of the Canelo-GGG fight, while Stephen A. Smith had to be the calm, reasoned man.

For months, Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin was being promoted as the best fight in boxing. When they finally made it to the ring, it played out like that. The whole time, we knew that the only thing that could ruin the outcome was a controversial decision, so of course that’s how it had to play out.

Needless to say, when people switched over to ESPN, they were treated to some post-fight fireworks from Teddy Atlas. He’s always been a divisive figure, and his blowup, in which he called Canelo vs. GGG a “product of corruption”, won’t help him win any fans.

Somehow, Stephen A. Smith was the most reasonable person in this video. Perhaps that’s because he wasn’t talking to Max Kellerman, whose knowledge of boxing is vastly greater than Stephen A’s. So when he’s paired with someone like Atlas instead, he looks like a genius in comparison.

If you don’t want to watch an 8-minute exchange between Smith and Atlas, here are some of the highlights from what Atlas said:

“Boxing doesn’t honor the things it should honor. It honors money, control, power. And there’s only certain power brokers in boxing, certain promoters, and they have the power. They have control who the judges are going to be, who the judges aren’t going to be, who they’re going to vote for. Las Vegas, where the money is going to come back there for the rematch.

“At the end of the day, (Canelo) didn’t do enough to win. He knew that if he survived, and if he had spots, anything could happen. This could happen, the judges could take it from there.”

In a way, a lot of what he’s saying makes sense. Canelo’s always been viewed favorably by judges, ever since C.J. Ross scored his fight with Floyd Mayweather as a draw. Having been around the sport of boxing for many years, and sitting ringside for Jeff Horn’s win over Manny Pacquiao, he’s seen many controversial decisions up close.

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It’s much more likely that the draw was a result of incompetence or gross negligence rather than corruption. Even though a judge accepting a bribe isn’t out of the realm of possibility, it’s best not to make those claims less than an hour after the fight happened and without hard evidence. If the rematch ended in controversy again, then Atlas may be on to something.