Adalaide Byrd Will Now Only Be Issuing Baffling Scorecards In Unimportant Fights 

Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez put on a hell of a show on Saturday night. You could make a case that either fighter won the fight, and before the scorecards came out people were already talking rematch.

We probably will get that rematch after the judges declared the bout a draw, but all that anyone wanted to talk about after the fight was the scorecard of Adalaide Byrd. While Dave Moretti scored it 115-113 for Golovkin and Don Trella had it a 114-all draw, Byrd scored it 118-110 for Canelo. She gave Golovkin just two of the eight middle rounds where he pretty clearly outworked Canelo.

Byrd, who is married to Mayweather/McGregor ref Robert Byrd, won’t be judging any big fights anytime soon. Nevada Athletic Commission head Bob Bennett said Byrd will be taking “a small break” from judging major fights.

“I’m not going to put her right back in,” Bennett said. “She’ll still be in the business, but she needs to catch her breath.”

Bennett said Byrd would be asked to explain her scoring at an inquiry and that NSAC would go through the rounds on replay with the judge and would be asked to explain her thinking. “Like in any profession, you have a bad night,” Bennett said. “Unfortunately, she didn’t do well. I can tell you she conducts training for us, takes judges under her wing, but her score was too wide.”

Byrd has drawn controversy in the past. Carl Moretti, Top Rank’s vice president of boxing operations, objected to Byrd judging the Vasyl Lomachenko-Nicholas Walters fight last November. (Lomachenko won by TKO.) Moretti told BoxingScene.com:

“We respectfully requested that Adalaide Byrd not be assigned to this fight,” Moretti said. “From there it went on to a conversation [with NSAC executive director Bob Bennett] about how she is a good judge. Some judges can have good nights and can have bad nights. But when she has bad nights, she seems to be too far away from the score. Bob defended her left and right. He didn’t wanna listen to our objection.”

Byrd was a judge on an undercard fight of the Manny Pacquiao vs. Jesse Vargas card, another Top Rank event last November. Organizers were upset at her 118-110 scorecard favoring Jessie Magdaleno over Nonito Donaire. The other judges scored it 116-112, and many observers thought it was closer.

She’s also notorious among some MMA fans for a variety of decisions while judging that sport. She was one of two judges who scored it 29-28 for Leonard Garcia in his controversial win over Nam Phan in 2010 at The Ultimate Fighter 12 finale.