Canelo Alvarez survives another close fight in Las Vegas.
In the main event of a DAZN-streamed card from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Alvarez scored a narrow unanimous decision win against Daniel Jacobs (115-113, 115-113, 116-112). With the win, Alvarez now becomes the unified WBA "Super," WBC and IBF middleweight world champion, putting him one step closer to becoming the undisputed champion at 160 pounds. Fightful scored the bout 115-113 in favor of Alvarez on its live coverage page.
The title unification was more of a chess match than a explosion of punches between two knockout artists. Both men used the first few rounds to find their range and establish a rhythm, but it was Alvarez who defended well against Jacobs' early punches. Alvarez landed several shots upstairs that hurt Jacobs at various points, but Jacobs managed to avoid the knockdown.
As the fight wore on, Jacobs tried different methods to break through Alvarez's defense, including switching to a southpaw stance throughout the second half of the fight. Jacobs had success landing clean punches in the last few rounds and closed the gap on the scorecards, but not enough to walk away with three of the four major middleweight titles.
For this fight, Alvarez moved back down to middleweight for the first time since going up to super middleweight last December when he dethroned WBA "Regular" super middleweight champion Rocky Fielding. That fight was the first in Alvarez's multi-year deal with DAZN. With the streaming service also having the likes of Callum Smith, Gennadiy Golovkin, Demetrius Andrade, all current or former champions at either 160 or 168 pounds on its roster, there are plenty of options for the Mexican star in terms of his next fight regardless of the result.
This was Jacobs' first IBF middleweight title defense since winning the belt last October when he won the then-vacant belt with a split decision win against Sergiy Derevyanchenko. This was Jacobs' second loss since 2017 with the first one being a narrow decision loss to Golovkin at Madison Square Garden.
Fightful has a post-show podcast breaking down the main event and the rest of the entire card, which can be seen at this link.