Canelo Alvarez answered questions Saturday night about his ability to continue beating championship-caliber opponents.
The 36-year-old Mexican icon neutralized Christian Mbilli’s trademark aggression, mostly fought at his preferred pace and outlanded a younger, hungry fighter to win their super middleweight championship match.
Guadalajara’s Alvarez, who went off as more than a 3-1 favorite, unanimously outpointed the previously unbeaten Cameroon native in the main event of The Ring’s “Mexico Versus The World” card at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Judges Guido Cavalleri (116-111), Jorge Gorini (117-110) and Barry Lindenman (115-112) favored Alvarez’s work in a main event DAZN streamed globally.
Alvarez, The Ring’s No. 1 contender for an unclaimed super middleweight title, regained the WBC 168-pound championship he lost to Terence Crawford in his previous fight 13½ months ago in Las Vegas.
The WBC stripped that belt from Crawford after he unanimously outpointed Alvarez (64-3-2, 39 KOs) because he declined to pay the WBC’s sanctioning fee. Mbilli, 31, was elevated from interim champion to full champion by the WBC.
“It’s so difficult to explain,” Alvarez told DAZN’s Claudia Trejos in his post-fight interview. “It is something unbelievable. This feels like my first title. Now I’ve spent 21 years as a professional. Sixteen years ago, I won my first title. Now I won that title again. I’m so proud of my team. Eddy Reynoso and ‘Chepo’ Reynoso, who made me, who made me who I am, who made me the champion I am — thank you so much for everything, Eddy, thank you so much, ‘Chepo.’ ”
The Montreal-based Mbilli (29-1-1, 24 KOs) also ended a long layoff against Alvarez. He hadn’t boxed since he fought to an all-action split draw with Lester Martinez on the Canelo-Crawford undercard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKcVC0G5A8Y
Faced with the most capable, experienced, smartest opponent of his career, Mbilli couldn’t make Alvarez uncomfortable and never attempted to employ an alternate plan. Alvarez’s precision prevented Mbilli from throwing nearly as many punches as usual (117 of 344).
“I knew he’s a strong fighter,” Alvarez said. “And he don’t throw a lot of punches because it’s difficult to throw punches with me.”
Mbilli undoubtedly needed a knockout in the 12th round. His right caught Alvarez flush with about 1:15 to go, but he didn’t follow up.
Alvarez landed a right that made Mbilli stumble slightly with under 15 seconds to go in the bout. That was the closest the four-division champion came to hurting him.
The ninth, 10th and 11th rounds mostly mirrored the sixth, seventh and eighth, as Alvarez conserved energy and strategically prevented Mbilli from mounting much of an attack.
Referee Hector Afu warned Mbilli for a low blow with 30 seconds on the clock in the eighth. More than 20 seconds later, Afu took a point from Mbilli for landing a right to the back of the head.
Backed against the ropes, Alvarez drilled Mbilli with a right that temporarily stopped him from punching when there were less than 50 seconds remaining in the sixth.
Alvarez slipped numerous punches in the fourth. He didn’t land many shots and allowed Mbilli to push the pace.
He waved Mbilli forward with just over a minute remaining in the third and shook his head to indicate the punches hadn’t affected him.
Alvarez landed lefts to the body as Mbilli pressed forward and threw right hands toward the end of the second. He also snuck in his right hand just before the bell sounded to end the first round.
A few rounds later, Alvarez realized he would completely control the action.
“The instructions always are correct from Eddy,” Alvarez said. “It’s boxing — do your job, move, [use] the jab and that’s it, do my job, do what Canelo do the best, and that’s what I did.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer and columnist for The Ring. He can be reached on X @idecboxing
