Results: Canelo beats Yildirim by 3rd round stoppage

By Boxing News - 02/28/2021 - Comments

By Eric Hughes: Canelo Alvarez made easy work in his match against his mandatory opponent Avni Yildrim in stopping him in the third round on Saturday night at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida.

The match was not worthy of a headlining type of fight, but Canelo has the star power to appeal to boxing casuals.

Any hardcore boxing fan would know that Yildrim did not belong in the ring with Canelo, especially since he lost his prior match. This should bring attention to how sanctioning bodies come up with which fighters should be mandatory.

Better yet, if boxing wants to bring excitement back to boxing, then they should make it mandatory for the #1 and #2 boxer in each division fight every year. Yildrim was nowhere in the top 10 or top 15 super middleweight fighters when Canelo fought him, so how did he get the fight?

Boxing analysts call Canelo the pound-for-pound king, which is a complete joke when you take into account Canelo’s ring resume over the course of his last 5 fights.

If pound for pound king were based off of the strength of opponents’ rankings, then that would put Errol Spence Jr. in the #1 spot. Spence has fought arguably the best group of fighters over a 5 fight stretch than anyone in boxing.

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Canelo did not fight Jermall Charlo when he was the mandatory. Canelo did not fight Andrade when there was time to do so. Canelo did not fight Artur Beterbiev or Bivol when he had the opportunity to. People talk a lot about back when Floyd Mayweather fought and who he did not fight.

There was only one fighter that boxing fans wanted to see him fight that did not happen, which was with Paul Williams. Canelo has controversial wins against Austin Trout, Erisandy Lara, and Gennady Golovkin.

The controversial wins that Mayweather had in his career, he manned up and gave those fighters a rematch to clear up any misconceptions. Canelo has not done that, and his ring resume is getting weaker with each passing fight.

Now they are talking about matching him up with Billy Joe Saunders, who has looked poor in his last two bouts. Not to mention he failed drug tests leading up to his fight with Demetrius Andrade.

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So why does Billy Joe Saunders get the nod over Andrade? This is not a matter of being in different weight classes because Canelo fought Amir Khan, who was two weight classes lower than him when they fought.

Congrats to Canelo on his victory, but to the boxing public, please stop saying he is the pound-for-pound king because he is not.