From the opening bell, Canelo Alvarez seemed destined for a knockout win against mandatory challenger Avni Yildirim. Alvarez did not have to wait long for that.
Yildirim’s corner kicked in the towel at the end of the third round when Alvarez took a TKO win and kept his WBC and WBA super middleweight belts Saturday night at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.
After the fight, Matchroom Boxing’s Eddie Hearn confirmed that Alvarez will face WBO title holder Billy Joe Saunders on May 8 in a unification fight at a location to be determined.
“I wanted to have a great fight here,” Alvarez, speaking through a translator, told the crowd at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, where attendance was limited to 15,000 due to COVID-19 restrictions. ‘I had to knock [him] out, and that’s what I did. That’s what I had to do. “
Alvarez (55-1-2) was the only fighter in the ring to hit the action in the first three rounds. Early in the fight, Alvarez threw loops around Yildirim’s high guard and pelted the body of the Turkish fighter.
And even in a fight against someone of the caliber of Yildirim, Alvarez showed the ring insight cemented as one of the best boxers. Instead of a hook, Alvarez put Yildirim on the ground with a straight right hand with more than two minutes to go in the third round.
Yildirim (21-3, 12 KOs) survived the round and even while sitting in his corner for the fourth round, he appeared to be at least three minutes into the game.
Trainer Joel Diaz begged Yildirim to show more after three mediocre rounds.
“I’m going to give you another round,” Diaz said to Yildirim in the corner during DAZN’s broadcast.
But even that was too much to ask. Another member of Yildirim’s corner went to the platform and asked for the fight to be stopped, a request that was mandatory.
According to CompuBox statistics, the fight was as skewed as it seemed. Alvarez defeated Yildirim 67-11, including a 58-4 lead in powerful punches. In the crucial third round, Alvarez threw 53 powerful punches when he seized the opportunity to overwhelm Yildirim, who tried in vain to catch the Mexican champion.
Alvarez took his second win in three months, keeping two of four tires in the 168 pound division. He doesn’t have to wait much longer to have a chance to win the third title. The fight against Saunders gives Alvarez the chance to get one step closer to an undisputed champion and bolster his cause to become the greatest Mexican fighter of all time.
Saunders (30-0, 14 KO’s) has held the WBO super middleweight belt since defeating Shefat Isufi in May 2019.
“I want to make history,” Alvarez said through a translator in the post-fight interview. “I want to be one of the best in the world.”