Earlier on Tuesday, the WBC revealed that they accepted Canelo Alvarez’s request to face WBC super middleweight mandatory Yildirim (21-2, 12 KOs) for the vacant 168-lb title that was recently stripped from champion David Benavidez last Friday.
It’s still not a done deal yet that Canelo will fight Yildirim for the vacant WBC 168lb title. DAZN will need to approve the Canelo vs. Yildirim contest, and they might not be happy about showing this type of mismatch.
It’s not that they haven’t shown fights that have turned out to be mismatches on their streaming platform.
It’s more about DAZN paying Canelo a lot of money, and it doesn’t help them if he faces obscure no-hopers like Yildirim, who is best known for being blown out in three rounds by Chris Eubank Jr in 2017.
The former four-division world champion Canelo arguably wants an easy title to add to his resume, and Yildirim gives him that opportunity.
As bad as Canelo’s last opponent Sergey Kovalev looked this past November, Yildirim is an upgrade over him. Some boxing fans believe that Kovalev was also carefully picked by Canelo and his promoters.
In a landslide vote, the World Boxing Council Board of Governors voted Canelo in as the opponent for the 28-year-old Yildirim by a 36-1 vote.
Immediately fans began criticizing the WBC’s decision to vote Canelo in as the opponent over the other candidates Callum Smith and Azizbek Abdugofurov.
Initially, it was thought that it was the WBC that picked Canelo as one of the candidates to face Yildirim, but it now turns out it was the other way around, according to Mike Coppinger.
Canelo was the one that contacted the WBC and asked to be considered as the opponent for Yildirim. The WBC then sat down and voted Canelo in as the guy that will meet Yildirim.
Some fans argue that the WBC gave the spot to Canelo due to the money they can make from the sanctioning fees from his fights if he wins the WBC 168lb title. Who knows? Canelo might not hold onto the WBC, mainly if former champion David Benavidez works his way back into a position to fight for the belt.
Canelo hasn’t shown much interest in facing Benavidez during his career, and he never responded to being called out by eh 6’2″ former champion. That’s something that WBO super middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders noted earlier on Tuesday about Canelo not wanting any part of Benavidez when he held the WBC title.
“(Alvarez) contacted the WBC and requested to fight Yildirim for the title, and that is absolutely one of the privileges he has in having the,” said WBC president Sulaiman to The Athletic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcUnEvOb5vY&t=123s
Canelo choosing to fight Yildirim isn’t a good move for him and doesn’t help DAZN to bring back their subscribers.
Whether this is a self-serving move on Canelo’s part is unclear, but it’ll end up working that way if the fight takes place between him and Yildirim.
Canelo will beat Yildirim with smooth, but the fight won’t interest boxing fans enough for them to reactive their suspended accounts with DAZN or lure new subscribers.
In hindsight, DAZN may not have picked the right guy to give a considerable 11-fight, $365 million contracts with when they signed Canelo.
Without any guarantees that Canelo would fight Gennady Golovkin as soon as possible after signing the Mexican star, he chose to take easier fights against Rocky Fielding, Sergey Kovalev, Danny Jacobs and now Yildirim.
Recently, Canelo was interested in fighting Saunders, but the match failed to take place.
