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Canelo vs Yildirim: Pros react to Canelo Alvarez’s thrashing of Avni Yildirim

It was an easy night for Canelo in Miami, as pretty much everyone figured it would be.

Melina Pizano/Matchroom
Scott Christ is the managing editor of Bad Left Hook and has been covering boxing for SB Nation since 2006.

Canelo Alvarez did what most figured he would do tonight, ripping through a vastly over-matched Avni Yildirim in three rounds to retain the WBC and WBA super middleweight titles, and setting up a May 8 fight with Billy Joe Saunders, which is now official.

Canelo (55-1-2, 37 KO) made short work of Yildirim (21-3, 12 KO), who looked well out of his depth physically and mentally in the ring with arguably boxing’s top pound-for-pound fighter. The challenger from Turkey went down in the third round, and his corner stopped the fight after that round, deciding not to send him out for further punishment.

The Saunders fight in May is at least more competitive on paper, a tougher style matchup against a better fighter, but Canelo will be heavily favored there, too. There’s really nobody at 168 he won’t be heavily favored against for the moment, so that goes with the territory, but certainly there are better fights — lots of them — than this one to come.

The fight didn’t leave a lot of room for the pros watching to have a ton to say, but here’s what they had on Twitter:

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