Report: Canelo Alvarez underwent hand surgery following Gennady Golovkin fight

As previously reported by FightNights.com, Canelo Alvarez suffered an injury to his right hand during training camp for the Gennady Golovkin fight.

Alvarez fought Golovkin with Winning gloves instead of his usual Everlast MX. Winning gloves are more padded with foam for extra hand protection, and is recognized as one of the best training gloves on the market, which raised some eyebrows.

Sources with knowledge of the situation tell FightNights.com that Canelo underwent arthroscopic surgery at some point following the bout and had multiple pieces of bone fragments removed from his right hand. The healing period is approximately six weeks for the minimally invasive procedure.

Alvarez and Golovkin fought to a controversial split draw on Sept. 16 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, in a bout that a majority of ringside observers had Golovkin winning. However, the fight was marred by perhaps the worst scorecard in modern memory, which was turned in by judge Adelaide Byrd, who stunningly scored the contest 118-110 for Canelo, and has since been reinstated by the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

Compubox punch statistics show Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KO’s), 35, landed 218 of 703 punches (31 percent), while Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KO’s), 27, of Mexico, connecting on 169 of 505 punches (33.5 percent).

Canelo threw nearly 200 punches less than Golovkin and virtually 100 less than his previous fight against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in May, which he won in a lopsided unanimous decision.

This is not the first time that Alvarez has injured his hand. Following a ninth-round knockout of Liam Smith to claim the WBO junior middleweight world title in September 2016, it was revealed that Canelo fractured his right thumb, and was forced to sit out the remainder of the year.

At the post-fight news conference, Alvarez said it could be at least a year until he gets back into the ring.

“Right now, I am going to rest for the remainder of the year and be back in May or September,” he stated. “Whatever the people want, that is what we are going to do. One thing is for sure; this is my era.”

An important thing to keep in mind is that Canelo also took eight months off between the Smith and Chavez fights.

Canelo was ringside at The SSE Arena in Belfast last Saturday cheering on fellow countryman Horacio Garcia, who lost a questionable 12-round decision to former two-division world champion Carl Frampton.