Alvarez did not need to wait long for this.
Yildirim’s corner threw in the towel at the end of this third round, also Alvarez picked up a TKO victory to retain his WBC and WBA super middleweight belts Saturday night at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.
After the fight, Matchroom Boxing’s Eddie Hearn verified that Alvarez will confront WBO titleholder Billy Joe Saunders in a unification bout on May 8 in a place to be decided.
“I wished to have a great fight ,” Alvarez, speaking through an interpreter, told the audience, that was capped at 15,000 due to COVID-19 restrictions. “I had to knock [him] out, and that’s exactly what I did. That is what I needed to perform.”
Alvarez (55-1-2) was the only fighter in the ring pressing on the action in the first three rounds. Early in the struggle, Alvarez threw looping hooks across Yildirim’s high shield and pelted the Turkish fighter’s body.
And even at a struggle against somebody of Yildirim’s grade, Alvarez displayed the ring acumen which has cemented his status as one of boxing’s leading pound-for-pound fighters. Instead of a hook, Alvarez floored Yildirim with a direct right hand with over just two minutes to go in the third round.
Yildirim (21-3, 12 KOs) survived the round, and even while he sat in his corner before the fourth round, he appeared to be match for at least three years.
Trainer Joel Diaz pleaded with Yildirim to show more after a three rounds.
“I’m going to give you more f–ing around,” Diaz told Yildirim in the corner throughout the DAZN telecast.
Another member of Yildirim’s corner went to the apron and asked for the struggle to be stopped, a petition obliged.
Alvarez entered the struggle as a -6000 favored, based on Caesars Sportsbook from William Hill.
Based on CompuBox stats, the fight was as lopsided as it seemed. Alvarez outlanded Yildirim 67-11, including a 58-4 border in power punches. In the decisive third round, Alvarez threw 53 power punches as he pounced on the opportunity to overwhelm Yildirim, who attempted to grab the Mexican champion to no avail.
Alvarez picked up his second victory in three months and retained two of the four straps from the 168-pound branch. He will not need to wait more to have a shot at the third title. The fight against Saunders provides Alvarez a opportunity to move one step closer to being an undisputed champion and bolster his case to be the greatest Mexican fighter of all time.
Saunders (30-0, 14 KOs) has held that the WBO super middleweight belt because he beat Shefat Isufi in May 2019.
“I need to create history,” Alvarez said in the postfight interview. “I want to be one of the best on earth.”
