Canelo Alvarez defeats Avni Yildirim in Round 3 of title fight

Boxer Avni Yildirim gestures during a photo shoot at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla., on Monday.

(Marta Lavandier / Associated Press)

If you haven’t Googled “Avni Yildirim” yet, we’re here to help optimize your search intentions.

Don’t be too hard on yourself if you’re unfamiliar with the 29-year-old Turkish fighter nicknamed “Mr. Robot,” because Yildirim’s resume is missing a meaningful win, and this will mark just the third time he’s fighting in the United States.

The seven-year professional trains out of Indio, Calif., with respected coach Joel Diaz, and they will be working together for the first time looking to deconstruct the pound-for-pound great Canelo Alvarez.

Yildirim (21-2, 12 knockouts) is a former sparring partner of Alvarez and helped the Mexican star prepare for his rematch with Gennady Golovkin in 2018. At the time, Yildirim had just knocked out Jose Antonio Rodriguez Silvencia, holder of a 3-31-3 record.

Alvarez will now try to escape all of the makings of a trap fight that he picked instead of vacating a title and saving himself a total of $500,000 in sanctioning fees.

He shouldn’t have too much trouble.

Yildirim has come up short both times he’s stepped up in class. He suffered his first career defeat to Chris Eubank Jr. in 2017 in a third-round knockout. In his last fight in April 2019 against then-WBC super middleweight champion Anthony Dirrell, Yildirim dropped a 10th-round technical decision after Dirrell was cut above the eye because of a seventh-round head clash.

Avni Yildirim, right, walks into a news conference in Miami this week with a team coach to promote his Saturday fight against Canelo Alvarez.

(Ed Mulholland / Matchroom)

At the time of the stoppage, Dirrell was up 96-94 on two cards and Yildirim was up 98-92 on the other.

Shortly after the fight, Yildirim tested positive for two performance-enhancing drugs.

Yildirim’s performance against Dirrell — and eventual patience with sanctioning body semantics — was strong enough to have him firmly planted by the WBC as a mandatory challenger.

Consider Yildirim to be at the right place at the right time because Alvarez just picked up the vacant WBC belt in December when he beat Callum Smith. The belt was vacated by David Benavidez after he missed weight in an August fight, and was previously won when Benavidez beat Dirrell after the Yildirim fight.

Yildirim is promising that he’s not simply showing up to collect a paycheck after a near two-year layoff.

“I always give my all — and everybody should be ready to see a war,” Yildirim said. “He’s a big champion, everyone knows that. I’m ready for the world championship title for the big chance. It’s my time. Saturday, for everyone, it’s showtime.”

It’s becoming increasingly clear that Alvarez’s foes need to catch lightning in a bottle in order to beat him.

Yildirim, who was born in Istanbul, is seemingly the man for the job, at least by definition.

“Yildirim” translates to “lightning” from Turkish to English.