Can anyone from super middleweight Canelo beat Alvarez?

Another Canelo Alvarez fight and another dominating performance from one of the sport’s best. Alvarez defeated Avni Yildirim by technical knockout on Saturday to retain the WBC and WBA super middleweight titles.

We already know what’s next for Alvarez: a title union against Billy Joe Saunders on May 8. But what can we learn from Alvarez’s three-round performance at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami? Ben Baby and Michael Rothstein comment on the victory, the disappointment of Yildirim’s performance and what the long-term plan for Alvarez might be.

Rothstein: Avni Yildirim spent more time waiting in the ring for Alvarez to get there on walkouts than he actually fought Alvarez. This fight wasn’t a real match at all – and that’s part of the issue for Alvarez right now. He’s the star of the sport, but doesn’t have many options in terms of legitimate opponents to fight.

The alphabet organizations can keep throwing challengers at him, but it doesn’t seem like there will be many opponents that will be game competition. Yildirim should not have been in that ring. Is Saunders someone who can really run Alvarez for his belt? Or will there be another coronation on May 8? Because let’s be honest, the prefight mini concert with J Balvin was more interesting than any action we saw in the ring on Saturday night.

Baby: I really don’t think Saunders will have much competition. Saunders can do a few things right, but his unbeaten record doesn’t have really great wins. Yes, he has Willie Monroe Jr., David Lemieux and Chris Eubank Jr. beaten as a middleweight, but none of those fighters is even an elite.

Saunders doesn’t have much power either. He couldn’t take out Martin Murray in a fight that dominated Saunders in December. And of his 30 wins, Saunders has only 14 knockouts. That doesn’t bode well when he faces Alvarez, who took all the blows from Gennadiy Golovkin, as did his opponents in their epic series of two fights.

There’s only one man who could push Alvarez: WBC middleweight defending champion Jermall Charlo. And that would have the potential to turn into a super fight.

Rothstein: Charlo would be intriguing, and it’s a good idea; although because it would be cross promotion who knows if and when that fight would take place. However, that could be one of the benefits of Alvarez being on his own in terms of promotion.

But how did the fight on Saturday night actually start? Yildirim was an obligatory challenger, and it wasn’t a challenge at all. How often do we see this these days – mandatory challengers are essentially in busy fights to put off the inevitable? For Alvarez, it delayed the unification against Saunders, a possible third fight against Golovkin or maybe that fight against Charlo.

It’s also not the only fight of its kind we’ll be seeing, or even the only fight in the news this week. We could see a similar situation later this year with Teofimo Lopez and George Kambosos Jr. It feels rarer and rarer for the mandatory challenger to get into a fight worthy of, well, mandatory. Instead, it seems like alphabet organizations are trying to keep themselves relevant.

At some point, after a fight like this, does this indicate that there may be a need to change the way mandatory title defenses are determined?

Baby: Oh sure. But the conversation about mandatory title defense is just one of many problems with the sanctioning authorities. Check out the rankings of any of the four major groups – the WBA, WBC, WBO and IBF – and the lists (and champions) will make little to no sense. There needs to be more consistency and logic in the rankings of those four sets.

That’s what made the Ring Magazine Championship so great for a while. The credibility of the publication coupled with the strong rankings made the belt the most legitimate and easiest for casual fans to understand. But even that has eroded in recent years.

Bringing it back to Alvarez, what’s a perfect 2021 for him? If he beats Saunders, as he should – William Hill listed him as a -588 favorite in the UK from Sunday morning – what will he do?

Rothstein: Oh man. Go to MMA? Are you fighting a Paul brother? That all seems to be the rage these days. Just kidding. Seriously, just kidding. If Alvarez really wants to fight four times this year, maybe try to see if he can complete the super middleweight division’s unit by fighting IBF title holder Caleb Plant or move to 160 to fight Charlo. The other option could be to go back to a light heavyweight division to fight the unified champion Artur Beterbiev.

There are options, but at this point it feels like every fight Alvarez has should be one of two things: a big money maker or one in which he can win another tie in some division. It’s easier said than done to have all that movement, but Alvarez is the only hunter who can.

The other choice, of course, is to seal that trilogy against Golovkin, who would fall into the money maker category. If Alvarez did that to end 2021, it could open a ton of opportunities for him to chart a 2022 where he could take more steps to be considered one of the greatest fighters of all time.