Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez beats Daniel Jacobs to unify middleweight division
- From the section Boxing
Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez unified the middleweight division with a points victory over Daniel Jacobs in Las Vegas.
The Mexican - now beaten just once in 55 fights - took Jacobs' IBF belt to add to his own WBC and WBA titles.
Judges scored the fight 115-113, 115-113, 116-112 in Canelo's favour after 12 rounds.
And the scorecard reflected Canelo's improved defence and counterattacking skills in his return to 160lb.
The 28-year-old became a three-weight world champion when moving up a division to face England's Rocky Fielding last year, but he returned to middleweight to face New Yorker Jacobs, 32, in what was his second bout of a reported £278m deal with streaming service DAZN.
Boxing fans will now be hoping to see Canelo face another American - WBO middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade - to become the undisputed middleweight king.
"Nobody in Mexico has ever done that, won all four belts in one division, so that's my motivation," Alvarez said, before the Jacobs fight.
Jacobs - known as the 'Miracle Man' after returning to the ring and becoming a champion following cancer - now has three defeats from his 38 fights.
On the undercard, Britain's John Ryder claimed the vacant WBA interim super-middleweight belt with a third-round knockout of Australian Bilal Akkawy.
The 30-year-old Londoner could now challenge compatriot Callum Smith for the WBA world title.
Elsewhere, Jerwin Ancajas and Artur Beterbiev retained their IBF titles at the Stockton Arena in California.
Filipino Ancajas, 27, beat Japan's Ryuichi Funai with a seventh-round knockout to keep his super-flyweight title, while Russia's light-heavyweight champion Beterbiev, 34, beat American challenger Radivoje Kalajdzic inside five rounds.
