Canelo Beats Mbilli by Unanimous Decision to Win Back the WBC Super Middleweight Title in Riyadh

Canelo Alvarez is a world champion again. Thirteen months after losing everything to Terence Crawford, Alvarez took the WBC super middleweight title from Christian Mbilli by unanimous decision Saturday at The Venue in Riyadh, 115-112, 116-111 and 117-110, in a fight he controlled from the middle rounds on against a champion who came to pressure him and could not.

“It’s so difficult to explain. It’s something unbelievable. It feels like my first title,” Alvarez said in the ring afterward. “Now, after 21 years as a professional, 16 years ago I won my first title. Now I won that title again. I’m so proud of my team.” He thanked Eddy and Chepo Reynoso, “who made me who I am, who made me the champion I am,” and said his wife had told him not to come home without the belt.

Alvarez (64-3-2, 39 KOs) was fighting as a challenger for the first time since 2013. Mbilli (29-1-1, 24 KOs), the Cameroon-born, Montreal-based volume puncher who was elevated to full champion when Crawford vacated the belt and was making his first defense of it, had promised all week that nobody could take his pressure. For four rounds he tried to prove it. He pushed forward from the opening bell, worked the body, threw in bunches, and had his best stretch in the third and fourth, when he kept Alvarez on the ropes and outworked him for stretches while Alvarez waved him in and slipped most of what came. Several media cards had Mbilli ahead or even after four.

Then Alvarez did what he has done to pressure fighters for fifteen years. He stopped giving ground, started timing the uppercut as Mbilli came in, and the volume dried up. The sixth and seventh were Alvarez’s on counters alone, a right uppercut late in the seventh the cleanest punch of the fight to that point. In the eighth he was walking Mbilli down, landing combinations, and the referee took a point from Mbilli for a clubbing shot to the back of the head, turning a round Alvarez was already winning into a 10-8 on most cards. Mbilli, who had said Alvarez “made a mistake” taking the fight, now needed a knockout and fought as if he knew it, and as if he knew what Alvarez’s right hand was waiting for.

The last four rounds belonged to Alvarez and his jab. He set the distance, picked his counters, and let Mbilli come to him without ever letting him get set. Mbilli landed a few solid right hands in the twelfth and did not follow them. Alvarez waved him forward again, landed a right of his own that wobbled the champion in the final minute, and closed the fight the way he had closed the second half of it, in control and unhurried.

Round by round, as it went:

Round 1: Methodical. Alvarez landed the cleaner counters and jabs; Mbilli came forward without landing much. Alvarez.

Round 2: Mbilli raised his activity and moved more; Alvarez answered with sharp counters and body shots. Alvarez.

Round 3: Close. Mbilli busier to the body and with his pressure; Alvarez landed solid single shots and showed the head movement, waving Mbilli in. Mbilli on most cards.

Round 4: Mbilli’s best round. Higher volume, better pressure with Alvarez on the ropes. Alvarez still landed clean counters. Mbilli.

Round 5: Competitive, both working the body. Mbilli kept pressing; Alvarez’s accuracy and timing kept it close. Split on the media cards.

Round 6: Alvarez’s defense and counterpunching, including uppercuts, started to frustrate Mbilli’s volume. Alvarez.

Round 7: Alvarez more assertive, a strong uppercut late. Mbilli stayed busy but less effective. Alvarez.

Round 8: Alvarez in control, walking Mbilli down and landing combinations. Point deducted from Mbilli for a shot to the back of the head. Alvarez, 10-8 on most cards.

Round 9: Alvarez relaxed and in rhythm behind the jab and counters; Mbilli tried to raise his volume but stayed predictable. Alvarez.

Round 10: Alvarez dictating with the jab; Mbilli searching for answers and committing less. Alvarez.

Round 11: Same pattern. Alvarez setting pace and distance with clean shots; Mbilli pressing without impact. Alvarez.

Round 12: Mbilli landed some solid right hands but did not follow up. Alvarez waved him in, landed clean counters and a right that wobbled Mbilli late, and closed strong. Alvarez.

Official scores: 115-112, 116-111 and 117-110, all for Alvarez.

“I knew he was a strong fighter. He didn’t throw a lot of punches because it’s difficult to throw punches with me,” Alvarez said. Asked if he would have done anything differently: “No, I did perfectly.” On the plan: “The instructions always are correct from Eddy. 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.”

It was the performance his camp had described. “I think his style is perfect for me to go against,” Alvarez had said in camp. Reynoso, on the 21st anniversary of Alvarez’s professional debut this week, had said the goal was “to prove who the greatest boxer in Mexican history is, and we will celebrate that by winning the world title once again.” The WBC belt was the first world title Alvarez ever won, at junior middleweight in 2011, and WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman, who traveled 42 hours to be in Riyadh after saying he would not let the organization’s fighters and officials be there without him, was ringside to see it go back around his waist. Mbilli, who had told The Ring, “It’s not the same Canelo from five years ago,” found out it was close enough.

“I’m going to rest. I’m going to keep learning. I’m going to keep working hard,” Alvarez said. “Right now I’m going to be a couple of weeks off and then come back.” He has said he wants four or five more fights, two of them in Riyadh and the last in Mexico, and told ESPN this week his next would likely come by February. Mbilli, who had never lost as a professional, had not spoken publicly as of late Saturday. He goes home with his first defeat and the question his trainer Marc Ramsay will have to answer: why a fighter whose entire identity is pressure stopped applying it.

The fight was the ninth of nine on the Mexico vs. The World card, one fewer than announced after Lindolfo Delgado’s vacant IBF title fight against Arthur Biyarslanov was lost to travel. It was held in a city targeted by Houthi missiles or drones on most days of fight week, two days after an alert sent the capital indoors minutes before the final press conference, under a US ordered departure of embassy staff, with DAZN’s announce team calling the card from a studio rather than ringside, as Dan Rafael had reported, and in front of a crowd that the broadcast’s wide shots showed to be well short of full in a hall built to look good on television. Riyadh Season had not announced attendance. The same building hosts WWE Crown Jewel next Saturday and Zuffa Boxing the Saturday after that.

None of that is what Alvarez will remember. He said Monday he feels safe in Riyadh and sees nothing bad. On Saturday night, with the green and gold belt back around his waist, he had reason to. The team’s last word in the ring was the one Mexican fighters have been shouting in Riyadh all week: “Viva Mexico, cabrones.”