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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nSaul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez beat Avni Yildirim to set up a world title unification fight with Britain’s Billy Joe Saunders on 8 May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mexico’s Alvarez cruised past Turkish challenger Yildirim to retain his WBC and WBA titles on Saturday, before promoter Eddie Hearn confirmed the forthcoming bout with Saunders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Briton’s WBO title will also be on the line when the pair meet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The venue for the fight has yet to be decided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alvarez, 30, is a four-division world champion who now boasts a record of 55 wins, one defeat and two draws, including 37 knockouts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, 31-year-old Saunders boasts an unbeaten record, having won all 30 professional fights, with 11 knockouts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The IBF belt is held by American Caleb Plant (21-0), but victory for Canelo will move him one step closer in his bid to become the first undisputed super-middleweight champion in boxing history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00abNo-one has done it,\u00bb Alvarez said. \u00abI want to make history. No-one has done it at 168 [pounds].\u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following the announcement of the fight, Saunders said he was \u00abready to rock and roll\u00bb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00abYou have to dare to be great and you are not going to be a great if you don’t beat the greats,\u00bb said Saunders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Routine victory for Canelo<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Yildirim retired before the start of the fourth round after being knocked down by the Mexican in the third at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00abI wanted to have a great fight and I did what I had to do,\u00bb said Alvarez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00abI needed a knockout and that’s what I did. It doesn’t matter if they’re taller, if they’ve got more reach, or they’ve got a good trainer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00abI came to do my job, I came here to win.\u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fighting in his first bout since beating Britain’s Callum Smith in December, Alvarez dominated and floored his opponent with a crisp left-right combination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
bbc.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez venci\u00f3 a Avni Yildirim para establecer una pelea de unificaci\u00f3n por el t\u00edtulo mundial con el brit\u00e1nico Billy Joe Saunders el 8 de mayo. El mexicano \u00c1lvarez super\u00f3 al retador turco Yildirim para retener sus t\u00edtulos del CMB y la AMB el s\u00e1bado, antes de que el promotor Eddie Hearn confirmara la […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boxeo"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=104744"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104746,"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104744\/revisions\/104746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=104744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=104744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=104744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}