Canelo Alvarez was moving up in weight did not give Rocky Fielding any advantage.
Alvarez (51-1-2, 35 KO) decimated Fielding (27-2, 15 KO) to win the WBA “world” super middleweight title, which makes Canelo a three-division world champion at age 28.
Alvarez stopped Fielding at 2:28 of the third round to win the belt.
“He came to attack, and that was the error he made,” Alvarez said, which was putting things nicely. Canelo dropped Fielding once in the first round, again in the second round, and two more times in the third round, battering his ribs mercilessly, before referee Ricky Gonzalez finally went ahead and stopped the mismatch.
This is not meant to be disrespect to Fielding, a 31-year-old scrapper and a solid, honest fighter who was never supposed to get to this level and gave his best effort. As Alvarez said, Fielding did come to fight, and that got him stopped in short order. He was simply outgunned against a smaller but far more skilled opponent, which is the result most expected.
We’ll see what’s next for Alvarez, which is the story going forward. He’s expected to return on May 4 in a return to middleweight, but with world titles in two divisions, there are plenty of things he could potentially do, including take a catchweight fight with someone for his super middleweight title. But that remains to be seen. He won tonight, got in a second fight in 2018, and that’s that.
Source: bloodyelbow.com
