Canelo Alvarez vs Dmitry Bivol scorecards show how close Mexican came to winning

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Canelo Alvarez came tantalisingly close to defeating Dmitry Bivol on the judges scorecards with the fight scored level until the penultimate round.

The Mexican suffered the second defeat of his career having been largely outboxed by the slick Russian throughout the contest at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Bivol was handed the unanimous decision victory with Tim Cheatham, Dave Moretti, and Steve Weisfeld scoring the bout at 115-113 in favour of the champion.

However, despite consensus from fans and experts suggesting the margin of defeat was much greater, Alvarez came close to being handed victory. The Mexican was judged to be winning the fight on all three scorecards after the ninth round by a margin of 86-85.

After four rounds of the fight, Alvarez was judged to have been ahead by a score of 40-36 on all three scorecards despite most acknowledging his difficult start to proceedings. Bivol was also required to win the final round in the eyes of the three officials to prevent a draw despite having a hugely successful spell in the latter stages of the contest.

If the Mexican had scored a final round knockdown, he would have been crowned champion despite having looked extremely fatigued in the closing stages as he struggled to come to terms with the Russian's display. Alvarez showed a bullish defiance after the fight claiming he did enough to get his hand raised despite his struggles after making a leap in weight.

"I won the