Watch the knockout punch you didn’t get from Mayweather-Pacquiao

Canelo Alvarez (L) delivers a punch to James Kirkland during their super welterweight bout at Minute Maid Park on May 9, 2015 in Houston, Texas. Getty Images

Saul “Canelo’’ Alvarez delivered what Floyd Mayweather Jr. did not: A crushing knockout punch.

One week after the highly anticipated Mayweather-Pacquiao fight failed to live up to expectations, Alvarez (45-1-1) put on a show for boxing fans with a punishing defeat of James Kirkland (32-2) in a junior middleweight bout Saturday night at Minute Maid Park in Houston. After twice knocking down Kirkland in the early stages of the fight, Alvarez ended it with a devastating right-handed blow in the third round.

“I did not see the punch coming that knocked me out,’’ Kirkland said after the fight, via The Associated Press.

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Even if Kirkland didn’t see the decisive punch, the electrifying knockout would have been a welcome sight to anyone bored by Mayweather’s methodical victory by unanimous decision over Pacquiao on May 2 in Las Vegas.

“You got a boxing match last week, this is a fight,’’ HBO boxing commentator Roy Jones Jr. said of the difference between the bouts.

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