Canelo Alvarez threw a Garden party Saturday night. A short and powerful fiesta.
Alvarez landed dozens of body punches, knocking down Rocky Fielding four times and stopping him in the third round to earn his third weight class title, taking the WBA super middleweight belt.
Coming off his close decision against Gennady Golovkin three months ago to take the WBA and WBC middleweight titles, Alvarez could hear chants of "Canelo! Canelo!" long before he entered the Madison Square Garden ring for the first time.
He delivered with power and precision, landing 73 punches, 35 to the body.
"That was the plan in the gym, to hit the body and then move up, and that's the result," Alvarez said through an interpreter. "You see the result here."
Only eight other Mexican fighters have held three division titles. And Alvarez, 28, says he is headed back to the 160-pound class he rules, with possibly a third go with Golovkin in 2019. The next fight, opponent unknown, is set for Las Vegas in early May.
"Canelo will fight whoever is the best, no doubt about it," said his promoter, Oscar De La Hoya.
Fielding, 31, won the WBA crown in July when he knocked out Tyron Zeuge in Germany in the fifth round. But the Englishman had never faced anyone close to Canelo's class, and it showed.
"I never shied away from the challenge," Fielding said. "I lived the dream, I'll come back.
"He is strong and all that. It was the body shots, the wind he took away. He placed the shots well and he caught me. I stood too long to try to mix it with him when I shouldn't have.
"The better man won tonight."
The fight ended with 22 seconds remaining in the third after two knockdowns in the round.
On the undercard, Tevin Farmer started fast, then coasted to a unanimous decision over Francisco Fonseca to hold onto his IBF super featherweight belt.
Katie Taylor of Ireland won a lopsided 10-round decision over Finland's Eva Wahlstrom to keep her IBF and WBA lightweight championships.
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