By Bart Barry-
Saturday on DAZN super middleweight champion and world’s best prizefighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez went through WBC mandatory challenger Avni “Turkey Wolf” Yildirim in a few rounds of medium-paced sparring. The match was not competitive but a necessary part of Canelo’s new approach to our beloved sport.
The Canelo Model is ratified and acceptable. Roughly it goes like this: Boxing’s biggest draw must make two annual superfights and the rest of his prizefights may be about whatever he thinks makes his two main fights shine. It’s like the Money May Model, except that by broadcasting his sparring sessions Canelo makes more money for everyone.
Saturday was a broadcasted sparring session with a live gait and concessions and parking tariffs and sanctioning fees and all the usual fixings. Canelo made far more money for punching Yildirim than he deserved, perhaps, but he also brought a bit of money to Miami Gardens that mightn’t have been there otherwise. He got Yildirim paid way more than was fair or right, too.
Canelo has found his new home, 168 pounds, and decided to show us exactly how to clean-out a division. It requires quite a bit more compromise than some might’ve supposed. One cannot unify a division with superfights alone. You already know this, but it bears reiteration. If one tries to unify a division with superfights, he gets stripped of an old belt each time he wins a new one.
The sanctioning bodies, parasitic birds they be, want to lay their eggs in every nest and dip their beaks in every stream. They make their money conjuring new titles and ratings to bestow on fighters in exchange for a point or two on those fighters’ proximate purses. The worst thing to happen to any sanctioning body is a unified champion, someone who doesn’t need their trophies and might not pay for them in the future – while spending a year taking selfies with a belt that is generating no new revenue for its bestower.
The general remedy to this problem is to mint new ones. International, intercontinental, diamond, silver, super, world, interim, gold, youth, and one for every continent and country. It’s nefarious the way inflation is nefarious and not nearly potent as stripping champions. Stripping, see, keeps a sanctioning body’s currency valuable in two ways: By not diluting the product and by implying something like quality-control.
Canelo is showing the world what a prizefighter must go through to keep belts. Avni Yildirim lost a close decision to Anthony Dirrell two years ago in a match stopped early because of an accidental headbutt. That’s how Turkey Wolf became Canelo’s mandatory challenger. By losing. Would Mexico’s WBC have stripped Canelo for leaving Yildirim on the shelf? Of course not. But the WBC would have made Canelo pay something extra to defend its belt in his next superfight. Other sanctioning bodies who see Canelo as the WBC’s guy already want to strip him like Matthew McConaughey; the WBA’s playing along for the time being, but if Canelo doesn’t spar with David Morrell or Fedor Chudinov in 2021 expect “Simply the pioneers” to simply strip him in January.
Canelo performs a further service for boxing. By fighting his mandatories during off months, men who’ve worked their ways up through a corrupt system either by dint of talent or by surrounding themselves with equally corrupt handlers, or both, likely both, Canelo shows the enormity of what gulfs separate generational talents like him from everyone else.
Avni Yildirim is much better at fighting than you are or anyone you know is. Yet he lasted fewer than 10 minutes with a man whose pro debut happened 38 pounds smaller than Yildirim’s. There wasn’t a moment’s doubt Saturday because Canelo is pure prizefighter.
Canelo doesn’t carry opponents these days. Not for fun or profit. He plans to stay oldschool busy this year, too, so he hasn’t a reason to go rounds or knock-off rust or whatever other cliches promoters yip about after their inactive superstars’ bland outings. He shows his palpable respect for the craft by showing inferiors open contempt. He walloped Yildirim on Saturday like Turkey Wolf was filled with sand and dangling from a rusty chain, like Yildirim hadn’t any volition of his own. When Yildirim stayed on his stool after a nineminute, depriving Hard Rock Stadium of its commissioned bloodletting, Canelo didn’t get theatrical. He thanked his disappointed fans and announced his next match.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry
