Canelo Alvarez made quick work of mandatory challenger Avni Yildirim on Saturday night, earning the TKO after the challenger’s corner threw in the towel at the end of the third round at Hard Rock Stadium in South Florida.
Alvarez retains his WBC and WBA super middleweight belts and will fight Billy Joe Saunders in a unification bout on May 8.
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“I wanted to have a great fight here,” Alvarez said afterward in Miami Gardens. “I needed to knock [him] out, and that’s what I did. That’s what I had to do.”
Alvarez improved to 55-1-2.
Alvarez landed 67 punches – 58 of them power – to Yildirim’s 11 in the lopsided affair.
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Spectators were capped at 15,000 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
–Field Level Media