By Aragon Garcia: Saul Canelo Alvarez (51-1-2, 35 KOs) knocked out WBA ‘secondary’ super middleweight champion Rocky Fielding (27-2, 15 KOs0 by a 3rd round knockout on Saturday night to become a three division world champion on DAZN at Madison Square Garden in New York. Fielding was knocked down four times in the fight by the 5’8″ Canelo in getting dropped once in round one, once in round two and twice in round three.
Referee Ricky Gonzalez stopped the fight after the second knockdown in round three. The time of the stoppage was at 2:38 of round three.
Canelo, 28, knocked Fielding down with body shots in rounds 1, 2, and then dropped him twice with head shots in round 3.
The 6’1″ Fielding gave away his height and reach the entire fight, letting Canelo get close to him and back up against the ropes where he had an easy time hitting him to the head and body.
It was a good showcase fight for Canelo Alvarez in displaying his talent against one of the weaker champions in the super middleweight division. Fielding came into the fight as the WBA ‘regular’ super middleweight champion, but he wasn’t the main champion with the World Boxing Association. The fighter that is viewed as the real champion with the World Boxing Association is Callum Smith (25-0, 18 KOs), who stopped Fielding in the 1st round in November 2015. Callum recently captured the World Boxing Super Series super middleweight tournament on September 28 in halting George Groves in the 7th round in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Canelo sticking around to fight Callum Smith for the true belt with the WBA would be a really interesting fight for the fans.
Canelo made it clear that he wants to move back down to middleweight to defend his WBA/WBC middleweight titles against the contenders. With David Lemieux pulling out of his fight against Tureano Johnson due to dehydration, he’s likely out of the running for a fight against Canelo on May 4. IBF middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs could be the fighter that he faces on May 4. There might not be much interest from the boxing public in seeing Canelo fight Jacobs, since he’s already been beaten by Gennady Golovkin, and he looked beatable in his last two fights against Maciej Sulecki and Sergiy Derevyanchenko. Callum Smith would be the best option for Canelo if he wants to impress the boxing world.
“I felt like it ended on September 15. I showed tht I was the best. If the fans want to see it, we can make it,” Canelo said about a third fight against Gennady Golovkin.
Canelo does not sound like he feels like a trilogy fight against Golovkin is necessary. Canelo brings up a good point. There’s no reason for him to fight GGG again. Golovkin needs to rebuild his career and get some good wins under his belt to try and increase the interest in an eventual third fight. If Golovkin is unable to get the big enough fights to increase interest in a third fight with Canelo, then so be it. Canelo has other things to do with his career than to continue to fight a guy he soundly beat last September.
