BEVERLY HILLS, February 28, (THEWILL) – Mexican boxer, Santos Saul Alvarez Barragán, popularly known simply as Canelo Alvarez, has successfully defended his WBA (Super), WBC and The Ring super middleweight titles after knocking out Turkish challenger Avni Yildirim in their fight in the Miami Gardens Hard Rock Stadium.
It was all Alvarez from the start on Saturday.
The Mexican took control from the beginning and seized his opportunity in the third round. After delivering some brutal body punches, Alvarez knocked Yildirim down with a right hand following a setup jab.
And, although Yildirim pulled through, his corner threw in the towel before the fourth round began. The fight turned out to be a fairly routine affair for Alvarez. The one-sided beating of the first two rounds made the quitting at the end of the third round sensible.
Alvarez, whose only loss in 57 fights came against retired and undefeated former world champion Floyd Mayweather Jr., had only drawn twice before Saturday’s bout with his Turkish challenger. Those two draws were against Mexican Jorge Juarez and the Kazakhstani Gennady Gennadyevich Golovkin, whom he later defeated in a rematch.
With thirty-six knockout wins in all and a 13-fight undefeated streak ahead of the Saturday fight, Alvarez was the clear favourite to win. His reputation of winning boxing titles in four weight classes (light middleweight, middleweight, super middleweight and light heavyweight) gave him an impressive resume to call upon.
The 30-year-old who is ranked as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world by BoxRec, a website dedicated to holding updated records of professional and amateur boxers (male and female), relinquished his WBO light heavyweight title, which he got for beating Sergey Kovalev via 11th-round knockout in November 2019, to move back down to super middleweight.
For Yildirim, he came to the bout on the back of a lifetime record of 21-2 with 12 consecutive knockout wins ahead of meeting Alvarez, which gave the fight a lot of pep in the lead up to the actual fisticuffs.
There was some controversy involved in his last fight in February 2019, where he lost to the American 36-year-old Anthony Dirrell via technical split decision with the judges’ scorecards varying considerably. One had it 98-92 for Yildirim, while the other two posted 96-94 results, giving Dirrell the vacant WBC super middleweight title.
The Turkish boxer has fought at the super middleweight and light heavyweight divisions during his career. He took his first 16 bouts before falling to Chris Eubank Jr. by a third-round knockout. He then won another five straight fights before the 2019 loss to Dirrell in controversial circumstances.
The 29-year-old was the mandatory WBC challenger for the title holder. His loss now allows Alvarez to look forward to unifying all the super middleweight belts. Waiting on the sidelines for that bout is WBO super middleweight champion Englishman Billy Joe Saunders, whom Alvarez is lined up to fight on Saturday, May 8.
Beyond that, the final piece of the unification challenge will be a fight against Caleb Plant, the American who has held the IBF title since 2019. The earliest likelihood is a date sometime in fall 2021.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
