On Saturday, Saul "Canelo" Alvarez will enter the ring in the rare position of world title challenger. Alvarez will face WBC super middleweight champion Christian Mbilli in Saudi Arabia in Alvarez's first fight since September 2025. In Alvarez's previous fight, he suffered the most humbling defeat of his professional career, dropping a clear decision to Terence Crawford.
Crawford was the much better fighter that night, using his world-class skills to beat Alvarez to the punch and constantly disrupt his rhythm. Unlike Alvarez's prior losses, he was not the far more inexperienced fighter facing a hall of famer (like against Floyd Mayweather Jr.) or the smaller man coming up in weight against a pound-for-pound elite (as was the case against Dmitry Bivol). Alvarez was younger than Crawford with a history of huge fights and Crawford was moving up multiple weight classes for the mega-payday of facing Canelo.
What happened against Crawford seemed to validate all the doubts that had built up over the years. Alvarez has a ton of in-ring miles on his body at 36 and has seemed to have lost a few steps in recent years. Plus, Alvarez has not scored a stoppage since 2021.
Time seemed to be catching up to Alvarez, and against a fighter as skilled as Crawford, there was no escape for the then-undisputed champion. Those doubts, and the question of how much Alvarez has left in the tank, lead us to Saturday and Mbilli, who was promoted from interim to full champion when Crawford retired following his win over Alvarez. Mbilli is a hard-charging fighter who has yet to taste defeat in his professional career, putting up a 29-0-1 pro record with 24 knockouts.
Mbilli won the WBC interim belt with a first-round knockout of Maciej Sulecki, the second first-round knockout in a three-fight span for Mbilli. His first defense of the interim belt came against Lester Martínez on the undercard of Alvarez's fight with Crawford. Against Martinez, Mbilli was on his usual game early, coming forward, throwing big right hands and working the body, but he fatigued down the stretch, which has been a recurring problem for the muscular Mbilli.
The result of the fight was a very competitive draw that could have realistically gone either direction. Were you to design a fighter in a lab who is most tailor-made for peak Alvarez, he'd look a lot like Mbilli. Mbilli doesn't have a deep bag of tricks, he comes forward and he throws big combinations with good body work.
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