Canelo Alvarez Claims Another Belt. Now What?

Saul “Canelo” Alvarez won another title over the weekend while making a ton of money and looking damn good in the ring. So why is it so easy to feel sorry for him? The deserving Mexican legend got past a quick start from reigning WBC super middleweight champion Christian Mbilli, then pounded the essentially unknown underdog champ’s will to win out of him and took his belt via a unanimous decision on Saturday in front of a disinterested crowd in a small arena in Riyadh. The start of the fight was delayed for about an hour, reportedly because Turki Al-Sheikh, the Saudis’ sweet science point man, couldn’t be bothered to show up on time. When the opening bell finally rang, Mbilli started strong. The undefeated 31-year-old Frenchman, who won his first belt last year with a vicious first-round knockout of Maciej Sulecki, was not only younger, bigger and faster than the grizzled veteran, he was also busier. Mbilli was shoving Canelo into corners and throwing punches in bunches. Canelo was accurate with his counters, but Mbili was more than holding his own early on. In the third round, when Canelo had his back against the ropes, he began pounding his own chest and inviting Mbilli to take more shots at him. Canelo had made the very same gestures during a 2022 loss to light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol, perhaps to fire himself up, but in that case ended up bringing himself more pain.

Read it at Defector ↗

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