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Canelo Alvarez did what everyone honestly expected tonight in Miami, beating Avni Yildirim in three rounds to retain his WBC and WBA super middleweight titles, and hosting a fight on May 8 with WBO title holder Billy Joe Saunders .
“It’s Canelo vs. Saunders on May 8, location to be announced shortly,” Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn said after the fight. “It will be one of the biggest fights of the year.”
Canelo (55-1-2, 37 KOs) had his way from the start, easily winning the first two rounds against provisional Yildirim (21-3, 12 KOs), while unleashing powerful blows to the body. Yildirim fell in the third round but finished the frame, before he was stopped in the corner after coach Joel Diaz told the Turkish challenger he would only give him one more lap. Instead, the team decided to stop doing rounds.
Here are the few highlights we got:
Yildirim took a lot of heat after the fight from the DAZN team which was arguably unfair. He was an underdog of around 15 to 1 and those odds were frankly generous and designed just to generate money. He’s not in the top 10 super middleweight, and he wasn’t up to Canelo on paper or in the ring.
Expected to be aggressive, Yildirim didn’t offer anything, really, and Canelo just took him down. The march is now on to continue unification at 168 pounds.
“I come here to do my job, I come to win and I come to write history,” Alvarez said through a translator after the fight. “I feel strong, fast and comfortable (at 168). I will fight anyone. I always fight for the best. It does not matter. I had to fight against Yildirim (as obligatory) to (continue to) unify 168. ”
Billy Joe Saunders (30-0, 14 KOs) is therefore next as expected. It’s a much more intriguing fight than this one. Who do you have on May 8?
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