The venue of the fight will be Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida, despite the idea that he was in Mexico at the time.
Four times world champion Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez (54-1-2, 36 Ko’s) officially returned to the ring on February 27 to make the mandatory Super World Council World Boxing Championship defense against the obligatory challenger Avni Yildirim (21-2, 12 Ko’s), a 28-year-old Turk who was very close to wearing the same crown just in the most recent fight of his, when he fell controversially in front of Anthony Dirrell.
The headquarters of the fight, despite the intentions of “Canelo” Álvarez and his manager and coach, Eddy Reynoso, to do so in Mexico, will eventually be in a building in the US. It was thought to be Dallas, San Antonio or Houston in Texas, but Hard Rock Stadium Miami, Florida emerged as the confirmed venue.
It will be the first of three or four battles planned by “Canelo” Álvarez and his team for this 2021, after they became free agents in the last quarter of 2020. For the weekend of May 5 is planned, as long as there are no obstacles against Yildirim, a new battle for Saul, temporarily against Billy Joe Saunders.
“Canelo”, who was recognized as boxer of the year 2020 by the World Boxing Association and the World Boxing Council, comes from the authoritarian defeat on December 19 of the British Callum Smith, who was undefeated by unanimous decision before 11,500 fans of at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.
This will be the eighteenth championship fight for the Mexican fighter, who in 2019 became the fourth tricolor fighter to win world titles in four different categories, along with characters such as Érik “Terrible” Morales, Juan Manuel “Dinamita” Márquez and Jorge “Naughty – Arce. Leo ‘El Famoso Terremoto’ Santa Cruz was later added to the selected list.
Yildirim will support his second championship fight after a controversial loss to Anthony Dirrell in February 2019 for the vacant WBC super-middle belt. The Turk of that time did not step into the ring waiting for the opportunity. In another large-scale battle for the Turk, against Chris Eubank for the International Boxing Organization Championship, he was eliminated in three rounds.