Canelo Alvarez and Avni Yildirim provided no drama at their weigh-in Friday.
Alvarez, who will defend his super middleweight titles, and Yildirim both weighed 167.6 pounds — .4 under the limit – for their fight Saturday night at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami (Fox).
Alvarez (54-1-2, 36 KOs) is around a 30-1 favorite, according to BetMGM. Thus, he is under pressure not only to win but dominate the challenger.
“I always went to be perfect,” Alvarez said through a translator after the weigh-in. “I always want to do things right inside the ring. This is no exception.”
Yildirim (21-2, 12 KOs) has the nickname “The Robot,” which reflects his come-forward fighting style.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faX1XNsnsXc&t=1738s
Alvarez isn’t the type of fighter to attack aggressively from the opening bell, but he implied that his opponent’s tactics could result in early fireworks.
“I always try to be patient,” he said. “It depends on what Yildirim tries to do. He [could] try to rip my head off. So it depends on what he tries to do.”
Alvarez won the WBA and WBC 168-pound titles by easily outpointing Callum Smith on Dec. 19. His plan is to beat Yildirim and then unify the four major super middleweight belts.
Yildirim is coming off a technical-decision loss to Anthony Dirrell for the then-vacant WBC title in February 2019, meaning he will have been out of the ring for two years.
The weigh-in results for the preliminary bouts are as follows:
- Zhilei Zhang (256.2) vs. Jerry Forrest (236.6), 10 rounds, heavyweights
- Diego Pacheco (168.0) vs. Rodolfo Gomez Jr. (167.0), eight rounds, super middleweights
- Alexis Espino (167.8) vs. Ashton Sykes (164.2), six rounds, super middleweights
- Aaron Aponte (139.8) vs. Harry Gigliotti (139.2), four rounds, junior welterweights
- Keyshawn Davis (136.6) vs. Lester Brown (134.6), four rounds, lightweights
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