MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - 🚨 Canelo Alvarez vs. Avni Yildirim Instant Reaction + Fight Announcement

Episode Date: February 28, 2021

Brian Campbell is here solo with an instant reaction to Canelo Alvarez vs. Avni Yildirim. What were Brian's biggest takeaways? Who's next for Canelo Alvarez? Brian breaks it all down here. ---------------------------- 'Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. The biggest star in the sport and pound for pound king, Canelo Alvarez took care of his mandatory business on Saturday night. My name is Brian Campbell. It is time for your morning combat instant reaction. Heck, it's morning somewhere. No, this is not an update to our room service diaries offering here,

but I am located inside a hotel room somewhere in Stanford, Connecticut, fresh off the CBS Sports HQ studio set, breaking down the super middleweight title bout. Canelo Alvarez defending his WBA and WBC titles against Turkey's Avni Yildirim. It was a fight on paper that wasn't good. We certainly praise Canelo, the Mexican superstar, for the right reasons coming in. He had to take this fight so he didn't get stripped of the title. Keep the chains moving.

Oh, by the way, he's not just going to fight once or twice this year. He wants to fight four times. He wants to unify the titles at 168 pounds, become the super middleweight division's first undisputed champion. He had to take care of the business here, and the business was very easy. A 50-1 betting favorite at times coming in. Canelo needed just three rounds to carve up not really a hapless Avni Yildirim, but a guy who uncharacteristically hid behind his

guard coming off a two-year layoff and a loss first fight with trainer Joel Diaz you can see there was a active strategy to be patient try to extend the fight a bit which is certainly against the style that we've come to know from this rugged brawler and Yildirim and it didn't work and it wasn't expected to work and how how could it against someone so quick, so accurate, so powerful as Alvarez, who, if you try to hide and survive, he's going to get you out of there because he's too pinpoint. He's too accurate. He's, uh, he's all that. And then some right short pale, and I guess pretty handsome. They're big red, but the whole point is, point is you're not supposed to really love this fight. Yet Canelo at least is doing the right thing by saying

this is a means to an end to get to the fights I want. May 8th, Billy Joe Saunders, which was announced afterwards. So I had to do it. He just fought two months ago, mind you. Nobody turns around this quickly. Canelo also made an event. Hard Rock Stadium, Miami, the home of the Dolphins. You saw an elaborate entrance and ring walk, fireworks, live performances and singing.

You know, maybe that doesn't mean anything to you, but Canelo exercised his star muscles on this night and at least gave the people in South Florida a show. We're not going to remember this fight favorably or really have learned much from it, despite the fact that this might be the best Canelo we've seen. Not this performance per se, because there's really nothing coming back at him. But this time in his life, 30 years old, I said it earlier, pound for pound king slash the star's biggest sport, which is a rare thing in itself to hold both at once. We've seen Floyd Mayweather do it in the recent past, but it's not easy to be the biggest star

and the best fighter in the sport at the same time. But, uh, you know, I've become very pro Canelo in the past couple of years because of the way he acts and carries himself as a true fighting champion, taking on tough customers, always humble, always, you know, a lot of good things coming out of Canelo. And it's not that there's never been things we can criticize from him. He's not, he hasn't been perfect in this run, right? From pretty boy early to guy with future promise to legitimate multi-division champion now to, you know, four division champion and really on his way of all time greatness, both in the Mexican boxing lineage and in the sport altogether from the standpoint of stars. You know, you look back at a couple of black marks. I always sort of

comedically bring them up. Did he avoid Gennady Golovkin for a year and a half to two years before being ready to elevate above Canelo weight and go to 160? Yeah, he did. Did he knock out Archie Solis' teeth on a sidewalk in Guadalajara and have the police cover it up over a guy looking at his girlfriend? Maybe, maybe he did that. You're going to have to really talk

to Archie yourself and figure it out. And you know, was there a, the tainted beef thing? Yeah, that was bad. That wasn't good. Um, you know, Canelo's got those weird tattoos of his wife's eyeballs as well. It depends on what you like at this point, but like short of that, the guy's been outstanding for this sport. And, uh, what'd you want him to do in this fight? He stood right in front of Yildirim, a bigger guy, more muscular guy, a on paper, bigger puncher. You might assume or think given his history, but kind of stood right in front of him with no respect for his power and just surgically took him apart like he was supposed to do.

So again, what are we going to say negative? It was like sort of a counter one, two combination from Alvarez with the right hand pushing across, knocked Yildirim down late in round three. We'd finally seen Yildirim let his right hand go a bit, but he was just getting pieced up to the body. It seemed inevitable that a big shot was going to come. And then he went back to his corner after round three. Trainer Joel Diaz saying, look, I'm going to need to see something out of you or I'm

going to throw in the towel. I thought that was excellent understanding of where they were already at right now in round three, that he was going to have to show you something good because he looked like Yildirim that he could be knocked out at any point, but you have to love even more when Yildirim's response, Mr. Robot was basically to, to stare into the space and do the Johnny five, no disassemble a shout out to that reference. If you're over page 40,

but you know, Diaz stopped the fight right there. So a lot of respect for that. Really nothing you can say negative about Canelo when he comes out afterward and says, I'll be back in just a couple months, folks, May 8th against Billy Joe Saunders, try to get one step closer, add that WBO belt. And then we already know the ambitious big red wants to come back in September and wants to come back in December.

Could one of those be against Gennady Golovkin and the other against IBF unbeaten champ Caleb Plant? I mean, this would be a monster year. Look, the quarantine was enough to get people off schedule. And already the biggest stars in the sport and boxing, they only fight twice a year for the most part in the modern era. And it sucks because a lot of those times, you know, one is the mandatory fight. That's not great, but it has to be done. And it's a good showcase opportunity on cable for the fighter. And then the other one is the big test against the, you know, another champion in their division or their big pay-per-view step up or whatever. And, uh, you know, you mix that with the quarantine where guys are fighting even less,

we're lucky to get the stars in there once. And a lot of times they're coming back just for easy stay busies. And this guy's like, no, I'm going to fight four times. And if you're mad at me for this Yildirim fight, basically F you, because you didn't give me the respect I deserved two months ago against Callum Smith. I like this attitude from Canelo. And, you know, this is that old school sort of way of doing things. I don't know if Canelo is looking at almost losing a full year due to the quarantine and thinking, I don't want to do that again. Let me pack in as

many fights as I can in a short distance. Is he trying to get them out of the way, right? Get a bunch of paydays put away, add a couple more key wins while he's still in his absolute prime? Or is he just looking at the landscape and saying, I'm better than all these guys. If I'm not going to take punishment in return and really, you know, who's, who's given sustained punishment to Canelo Alvarez besides Gennady Golovkin in those two fights, including the second one where Canelo was given back better than he received in a lot of ways, a nobody, right? Danny Jacobs pushed him by boxing. Laura landed clean, good shots and pushed him by boxing. Trout stayed in that fight by boxing. No one's been able

to bully him like that. So if you're not going to get hit and not going to, you know, have a reason to keep coming back, you know, stay, stay active and often it's like the old school, Joe Lewis, you know, those guys they're fighting five, six, seven, eight times a year. Now it's a lot of cases because they needed to based on the purses back then, but it was okay to mix in a, you know, as Rafe Bartholomew used to say, one for you, one for me type of deal. This is Canelo doing the one for you, one for me, all right? This was a showcase for Florida.

It kept the WBC off his back. He got a mandatory out of the way. And next will be a very difficult fight. And whether you're a boxing hardcore and you know the potential for the, you know, Swiss Army knife that Billy Joe Saunders can be, you know, a little bit of a potential, always a potential for a trap fight against him, whether you respect him or not. And then if you've never really heard of him, I mean, look,

he's an undefeated southpaw, Billy Joe Saunders, who believes in himself. He's gritty. He, you know, he'll cheat. He'll find a way to try to win. And he's just not easy to pin down and hit or outwork. So it's a potential to be a chess match for Canelo. And you love that he's so willingly going at that and saying, look, here's the date. We're back on the schedule. May 8th, you know,

Mexican holiday, let's do this site to be determined. But, uh, I got to say this, if this is a two fight tryout for Eddie Hearn as his potential promoter, they're a great mix. You saw Eddie wearing Canelo's pajamas during weigh-in day as a big joke, Dolce & Gabbana. And they just seem to work together and look great together. And you wonder, although you'd think Canelo would have to go and sign with the PBC in order to get the Caleb Plant fight, what if he just says, Eddie, I'm your man.

We're doing all co-promotions from here on out. I mean, you and your Canelo, you can do whatever the Caleb Plant fight. What if he just says, Eddie, I'm your man. We're doing all co-promotions from here on out. I mean, you and your Canelo, you can do whatever the heck you want. But again, anyone that would think I'm over-praising Canelo, what else are you going to say? We're watching the very best of the very best of this guy who just so happens to be one of the very best all-time and certainly of this era in the post-Mayweather Pacquiao. So you can't overly applaud him for what he did tonight, but he did it.

Uh, yield dream was hapless. Yield dream is going to go back to the, to the pile, right? Uh, I don't expect a lot about him cause he's limited this fight in a lot of ways should not have been scheduled. It is an indictment on a lot of things that's wrong with boxing, but we made it into an event and a little bit of fun, you know, getting there, Somehow John Moraga of UFC fame ending up on the undercard. But Canelo's meet the new boss right at 168, same as the old boss. It's Canelo Alvarez, and he's not going anywhere, folks.

I hope that, you know, now if we're being greedy as fans based on the type of schedule we think Canelo wants to have, I mean, imagine if he can close this year. Saunders, Golovkin, Caleb Plant. Imagine if we could get in the future the possibilities of an Errol Spence fight if he moves up, possibilities of an Andre Ward if he ever came back. How about Jermall Charlo if he moves up to 168?

How about Canelo saying, I'd move back down the middle weight for big fights. It's going to be exciting. It'd be exciting to see if Canelo can do this. He's, he's already walked a long tight rope with some close decisions. You know, that's one other thing you could have criticized him on getting the

benefit of the doubt and many close fights from tribe to Laura to Jacobs and all that. But he's still here. And in a weird way, he's still getting better. He's scary at this weight class. He doesn't have to cut down. I'm not really talking about Yodler and fight as much as what we've seen in the Calvin Smith

fight in December was a great breakdown of that. He's too quick for the opponents. He's too smart. He hits really hard. His body attack is incredible. So if you're going to hide behind that high guard, he is going to pick you apart. But that's about it from these parts in hotel land. Why don't you please like the video?

If you enjoyed this brief little breakdown and subscribe to everything going on on morning combat here on YouTube, or if you're listening on Apple podcasts and wherever else you enjoy fine audio, please spread the word on this and check us out every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Luke Thomas, joining me, the beige one, the artiste, the sauce, the BBC. Yeah. Cause we're almost out of here. This guy, uh, so much bonus in between you can't miss it. UFC two of 59, of course,

right around the corner. Got some great stuff planned for that, but, uh, that's about all I got right now. So, uh, check us back on Monday. And I want you to check yourself. All right. Before you wreck yourself. All right? You're on going with that? Right, neither do I. I probably got two more words for you, right? We out.