Riad, Saudi Arabia – the stadium lights went out, the fireworks were extinguished in the night’s night sky, and between the echo of the applause and the yawn of a confused crowd, William Scull walked towards the dressing room.

He had no blood on his face. He showed no cuts, or visible signs of a war in the ring. But his words, said with contained rage, rumbled as an unexpected hook in world boxing consciousness:“I lost the fight without a single blow. This is boxing.”

And with that phrase – Immad complaint, half epitaph – a storm began.

The mirage of Cuban hope

Scull, undefeated until then, arrived in Saudi Arabia as the elegant outsider: with technique, physicist and a promise not to represent modern Cuban boxing with dignity. It wasn’t Gamboa. It was not rigondeaux. But for some, it was a new chapter. They saw him as the symbol of a future without exile or servitude, as a man who could sweat the idol Tapatío, Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez.

But the fight was anything but that.

The Mexican dominated with surgical tranquility. Not for aggressiveness, not for punishment, but for calculation. Scull moved, threw, threw soaps in the air, but never found the moment. And Canelo, knowing that the clock played in his favor, simply neutralized every attempt with the trade of who has already been there too many times.

When the final bell played, the judges did not hesitate: unanimous victory for the undisputed champion. And it was there, before the microphones, where Scull released his bitter phrase.

Chronicle of disappointment

“They didn’t touch me. They didn’t beat me. They didn’t beat me,” he repeated quietly, while his team picked up the gloves. But what many saw was not a robbery. It was a postmodern boxing class: without drama, without exchange, without risk. A strategy duel in which one played chess and the other never knew what board he was.

For the Cuban fans, who followed him from the island and from exile, the disappointment was double. At least one resistance was expected. A dignified fall. But Scull did not fall: it simply disappeared from combat.

And for Mexicans who no longer believe in Canelo, who want to see him fall, who demand rivals with real hunger, the night was another mockery. Another fight sold as a war that ends in a monologue.

The champion’s silence

Canelo, meanwhile, did not celebrate with euphoria. I knew what had happened. He knew he had won, but not conquered. At the posterior conference, with a quiet countenance and measures answers, he avoided provoking. “He came to lose, not to win,” he said about Scull. And then he looked down, as if he were already thinking about something else.

The Mexican press was relentless. Headlines like“Combat without a soul”, “Canelo wins, boxing loses”, o“Scull: the rival who never arrived”They multiplied. Social networks burned in memes and criticism. Some requested Canelo retirement, others shouted for a confrontation with David Benavídez. But everyone agreed on something: that fight will not remain in the collective memory of boxing.

And now what?

William Scull will return to his camp with a record stained not for a beating, but for nothing. His defensive style and lack of initiative cost him more than a defeat: they cost her credibility. For Cuba, the future is still in pause. For Canelo, the question is the same as always: who is?

The phrase“I lost without a single blow to me”It will be remembered. Not as a heroic complaint, but as the perfect summary of a night where boxing was absent, where talent was not enough, and where the ring witnessed something worse than a defeat: the indifference of the show.

And in the middle of the Saudi dust, between bright belts and off cameras, it was clear that it is not enough to climb to the ring. You have to fight. You have to set fire. You have to leave the soul.

Because if there is no blow, there is no glory.