Alvarez drops Kovalev to become four-division champ

Canelo Alvarez made history in the main event Saturday night, as he stops Sergey Kovalev in the eleventh round to become the WBO Light Heavyweight Champion, as well as a champion in four-divisions. The main event aired on the streaming service DAZN and was coming from the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

In an unprecedented move, the main event of this matchup had to wait to start up after the conclusion of the pay-per-view event of UFC 244 out of New York. This started what was an over 90-minute wait between this main event after the co-main between Ryan Garcia make quick work of Romero Duno.

For everyone on the East Coast of the United States and beyond waiting for the fight to start, may have led to some napping in anticipation.

It has now been 71 minutes since Ryan Garcia knocked out Romero Duno and DAZN has THREE SEGMENTS BEFORE THE FIGHT EVEN STARTS! #CaneloKovalev https://t.co/vz0f01h6tD pic.twitter.com/EnpMnxkz8b

— Carlos Toro (@CarlosToro360) November 3, 2019

The first two rounds of this contest shown early on that Kovalev was keeping Canelo at bay. Kovalev known for his jab was throwing it out there early and often despite not landing it much at all. By the fourth round, the action picked up a little with Canelo being able to land more with counter shots to the body. The body of Kovalev was a focal point of a lot of pre-fight analysts as a key to the fight for Canelo to win.

That was apparent at the midway point of the fight as Canelo (53-1-2) seemed to be landing more effective shots to Kovalev.  The broadcast had a great point that after the seventh round that over 90 percent of the fight at that point was fought at a distance. Part of that was because Kovalev was establishing the jab with some success.

The action went to a standstill to a smattering of boos from the restless Vegas crowd who came to see more action in the eighth round at the MGM Grand Arena. The delay in this fight didn’t help but the action did pick up in the ninth and tenth rounds.

The eleventh round was the last of that one when Canelo caught Kovalev (now 34-4-1) with a short left that stunned him and then was planted with a picture-perfect right hand that sent him down. Once down at 2:15 of round eleven, Referee Russel Mora waived this one over and Alvarez became a four-division world champion.

This Slow-Mo Is VICIOUS ?#CaneloKovalev pic.twitter.com/tKVcAZRUv5

— DAZN USA (@DAZN_USA) November 3, 2019

After the KO, the official scorecards were revealed and Canelo was ahead by 96-94 on two of them with the third judge scoring 95-95 through 10.

Scorecards at the time of the Canelo-Kovalev KO: pic.twitter.com/s7o6npauVO

— Corey Erdman (@corey_erdman) November 3, 2019