Canelo vs. Khan 2016 results: Canelo Alvarez crushes Amir Khan in PPV main event

Canelo Alvarez did what was expected tonight in front of a reported 16,540 fans at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, knocking out undersized but very game challenger Amir Khan at 2:37 of round six with a vicious right hand, retaining his WBC and Ring Magazine middleweight titles.

Alvarez (47-1-1, 33 KO) had to deal with the speed of Khan (31-4, 19 KO) early on, but never looked overwhelmed by it, and to be fair, it certainly wasn’t anything that he didn’t expect. Canelo, the naturally bigger fighter, began to cut off the ring in the fourth and fifth rounds, and even if you had Khan ahead on the scorecard at that point -- two of three judges did not, for what it’s worth -- there was a sense that the fight’s momentum was shifting pretty dramatically, and that Alvarez’s body work and Khan’s inability to hurt Canelo were changing the fight.

That turned out to be true, as Canelo found himself in range for a devastating overhand right that crushed Khan’s jaw. It was a punch that would have knocked out just about anyone, and certainly was too much for a welterweight whose punch resistance has been an issue in the past.

That said, it was a fight that probably surpassed a lot of expectations. What we saw was a pretty competitive bout, which led to a predictable ending. Amir Khan was unable to evade Canelo long enough, and couldn’t do damage and earn Canelo’s respect. Alvarez threw a bomb, it landed, and the fight was over.

The obvious next fight for Canelo Alvarez is Gennady Golovkin (35-0, 32 KO), the amiable Kazakh star who has risen to the top of the middleweight division. Though Canelo can claim the division’s lineal championship, Golovkin is widely seen as the clear top fighter in the weight class. That’s the fight that the boxing fan base wants to see, but there remain serious doubts that it will happen.

On the undercard, middleweight puncher David Lemieux (35-3, 32 KO) stopped Glen Tapia (23-3, 15 KO) in the fourth round of what was a pretty one-sided affair. Lemieux couldn’t really miss with his left hook, which is what dropped Tapia in the fourth and caused Tapia’s corner to stop the fight. Prospect Frankie Gomez (21-0, 13 KO) won a lopsided decision over veteran Mauricio Herrera (22-6, 7 KO) over 10 rounds in a welterweight showcase, the best win of Gomez’s budding career. And in the pay-per-view opener, another hard-punching middleweight, Curtis Stevens (28-5, 21 KO), knocked out prospect Patrick Teixeira (26-1, 22 KO) in the second round.