Tim Bradley Slams Canelo Alvarez For Fighting Avni Yildirim: ‘Yildirim Is A Punching Bag’

Tim Bradley is not a fan of who Canelo Alvarez is fighting as of late.

Alvarez is set to defend the WBC, WBA super middleweight titles against Avni Yildirim on February 27 in Miami, Florida. Yildirim is the mandatory for the WBC title but Bradley doesn’t think the fight will be competitive at all.

“In a fight like this, Canelo should look very, very impressive, and he should win this fight in spectacular fashion. It should be a highlight-reel knockout. SportsCenter top 10, top 10 KOs in all of boxing by the end of 2021 when all is said and done. He can raise his profile and his standing with a KO win, because that’s what a lot of fans want to see,” Bradley said to ESPN (via boxingscene).

“Yildirim should get stopped before Round 6. He’s a mandatory challenger who deserves to fight Canelo, according to the sanctioning body. But at this point we know what these sanctioning bodies are about. Moving guys into certain places that can benefit their pockets, their franchise and improve the way their marquee fighters look. Why isn’t a guy like [David] Benavidez, who had that title and was one of the youngest guys ever to win that same title, in line for a chance to try to win it back instead?”

Not only does Bradley think Canelo Alvarez will win, but he believes there are better opponents and tougher fights for the Mexican. However, that is not what is happening and Bradley believes there is a zero percent chance of the upset happening as he says Yildirim is a punching bag.

“Yildirim is a punching bag. I watched his fight against Chris Eubank Jr., and he got smoked in that fight. I saw him against Dirrell. The Dirrell fight was an exciting, wild fight and it ended prematurely, but he lost. That’s his most recent fight, and it was two years ago. Now he’s going to step up against Canelo and do better than that?,” Bradley said.

“He’s one-dimensional. There’s nothing that Yildirim should be able to do against Canelo. He doesn’t have that one-punch knockout power. He’s a guy who comes straight forward. His head is always in the middle. He leans forward over his front knee. He’s almost 6 feet tall, and Canelo’s smaller, around 5-foot-9, but we’ve seen Canelo have success against taller guys. And even so, Yildirim and Canelo have the same arm reach.

“You look at Yildirim, and he’s fought a few guys, but anytime he has stepped up his class of opponent, he’s been destroyed. He looks terrible. He gets beaten. If Canelo does not knock this guy out, he cannot possibly be considered the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. It’s just a fight. It’s nothing that I would be willing to pay for to watch.”

Do you agree with Tim Bradley over Canelo Alvarez’s opponents?