By Pete Strauss: Avni Yildirim plans on using the same attack-oriented fighting style that Gennadiy Golovkin used against Canelo Alvarez when he challenges him for his WBC super middleweight title on DAZN on February 27th at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida.
The 29-year-old Yildirim will be a huge underdog against Canelo, but he can pull off an upset if he can use his Golovkin style of fighting to wear him down.
Yildirim’s power isn’t on the level of Golovkin, but he’s close enough to give Canelo problems.
The style that Yildirim uses is very similar to Golovkin with the way he is always on top of his opponents, not letting them take a break for a second. Yildrim could prove to be the kryptonite to bring Canelo down to earth on February 27th.
Yildirim’s manager Ahmet Oner says his fighting style is more like Golovkin (41-1, 36 KOs), and they plan on going on the attack against Alvarez (54-1-2, 36 KOs) next month.
“Yes, from my side everything is okay,” Yildirim’s manager Ahmet Oner said to Sky Sports. “I wait for the contract return.
“Verbally it’s all agreed, I think we are waiting only to get the contract back.
“The styles are different, Avni is more of a Golovkin-style fighter,” said Oner when assessing Smith’s display.
Golovkin used his jab to pick Canelo apart from the outside and hit him with hooks and right hands. That fighting style worked well for Golovkin in both of his contests against Canelo.
GGG took away Canelo’s left hook, which is his bread & butter punch, and left in the position where he was only capable of landing three or four clean-landing shots per round.
Despite being almost ten years younger, Canelo had massive problems against Golovkin in their two fights.
Canelo and GGG fought to a controversial 12-round draw in their first fight in 2017, a match that most boxing fans saw as an obvious win for Golovkin. Canelo looked like the older fighter, as he faded badly after six rounds in both fights.
In the second fight in 2018, Canelo changed things up and fought aggressively, taking the fight to GGG from the opening round. However, by the sixth round, Canelo had gassed out, and it was all Golovkin from the seventh round on. Most boxing fans saw the fight as a 12-round draw.
What the two Canelo – GGG fights showed is that Alvarez had problems when being pressured hard and forced to fight three minutes of every round.
Additionally, Golovkin exposed the fact that Canelo is a six-round fighter at best when he’s pushed at a fast pace.
Daniel Jacobs also exposed Canelo’s stamina problems in their fight in 2019. In Canelo’s last couple of fights against Callum Smith and Sergey Kovalev, has done well because his opponents failed to follow the blueprint to beat him created by Golovkin.
They fought slow, letting Canelo rest and that was the key to him beating Smith and Kovalev. It’s interesting how two experienced professionals like Smith and Kovalev would fail to follow a simple blueprint like the one GGG had created to defeat Canelo.
They fought Canelo the way he likes by not hurrying him, and they both wound up losing badly. With Smith, he looked like a novice, spending the entire fight with his back against the ropes, getting his left arm pounded by Canelo.
The warning signs were already there for Canelo, as we’d seen him fight this way in his previous match against John Ryder. That might be the reason why Canelo picked Smith in the first place. Canelo obviously saw that Smith can’t fight on the inside, and he couldn’t stay in the middle of the ring.
Canelo, 30, is on a mission to become the undisputed super middleweight champion of the division. Last December, Canelo dethroned WBA Super World 168-lb champion Callum Smith, beating him by a 12-round unanimous decision in a one-sided contest.
Canelo picked up three titles [WBA, vacant WBC, and Ring Magazine] with his victory over Smith (27-1, 19 KOs). He’s got two more belts to win before he’s crowned as the undisputed champion at super middleweight.
Yildirim is waiting for his trainer Joel Diaz to arrive for training camp so the two can part working to get ready for the Canelo match.
“Avni also has an excellent jab and I believe he will try more. Callum Smith, in my opinion, did not try anything. It was a one-sided fight,” said Oner.
It won’t be difficult for Yildirim to put in a better performance against Canelo than Smith, because he’s a smarter fighter. Yildirim would never fight with his back against the ropes for 12 rounds the way Smith did against Canelo on December 19th.