BOXING Alvarez TKO's Fielding in third

NEW YORK (AFP) — Mexican superstar Saul "Canelo" Alvarez brutally overpowered England's Rocky Fielding with a dominant display on his New York City debut Saturday to become a three-weight world champion.

Alvarez, who is the reigning World Boxing Council and World Boxing Association middleweight world champion following his thrilling victory over Gennady Golovkin in September, had little trouble in moving up in weight class and defeating Fielding, who held a second tier version of the WBA's super-middleweight title.

Alvarez sent Fielding to the canvas in the very first round with a crunching body shot and remained in complete control. He delivered a similar punch in the second which was also too much for the Englishman to take before the fight was stopped towards the end of the third following two further knockdowns.

"I thought he would use his distance but luckily he didn't," Alvarez said in the ring after becoming the ninth Mexican fighter to be a champion in three different weight divisions.

"He came to attack and I did my thing. The plan was to hit the body. That was the result."

It was, ultimately, a total mismatch. Fielding just didn't have the power to compete, and when he went down twice in the third, referee Ricky Gonzalez correctly stopped the fight with 22 seconds left of the round.

It was a brave effort from the 31year-old from Liverpool, who deserves great credit for accepting the task of entering the ring against the brilliant flame-haired Mexican, who extended his record to 51-1-2 with 35 knockouts in his first appearance since signing a record-breaking 11-fight, $365-million contract with sports streaming service DAZN.