Canelo Alvarez Reclaims WBC Title Against Mbilli

Canelo Alvarez dug back into his old championship self in Riyadh, coolly dismantling the unbeaten Christian Mbilli to reclaim the WBC super-middleweight title he once made his own.

A year on from that jarring loss to Terence Crawford, the Mexican star did not ease his way back. He walked straight into a fight with a fresh, undefeated world champion and walked out with Mbilli’s belt by unanimous decision, the judges scoring it 115-112, 116-111 and 117-110.

Mbilli starts fast, Canelo stays calm

Mbilli came to test him, not admire him. For the first half of the fight he did exactly that.

The French-Cameroonian champion bustled forward in bursts, slinging combinations and forcing Canelo to the ropes. He tried to turn the ring small, to crowd Alvarez, to drag him into the kind of three-minute exchanges that make even great veterans look old.

For a while, it worked. Mbilli’s work-rate and aggression gave him early rounds and, more importantly, questions to ask. Canelo covered up, rolled, watched. The old patience was still there.

Then the fight changed.

The veteran takes over

From the sixth round, Alvarez began to take command with the kind of quiet authority only a man with 68 professional bouts can summon.

He started to time Mbilli’s entries, using a sharp right uppercut as a key that unlocked everything else. Once that shot landed, the right cross followed, clean and heavy. The ropes, which had been Mbilli’s ally, became Canelo’s workshop as he settled in and went to work with counters.

Mbilli, so busy early, grew more cautious. Every time he stepped in, that uppercut lurked. The pressure he had built began to leak away.

In the eighth, Canelo stitched together a crisp four-punch combination and snapped a right hand into Mbilli’s head. As the challenger surged back in, the referee docked Mbilli a point for a shot around the back of the head, a rare moment of chaos in an increasingly controlled Alvarez performance.

Mbilli needed something to flip the narrative. Instead, Canelo tightened it.

He stepped off the ropes, claimed the centre of the ring and drilled Mbilli with the right hook. The fight, once frantic, now moved to Alvarez’s rhythm.

Canelo closes the show on his terms

Mbilli still had defiance in him. In the final round he landed a solid shot, a reminder that his power and ambition had not vanished. But the response told its own story.

Canelo waved him in, inviting the firefight. Mbilli didn’t take the bait.

Alvarez kept pressing, and Mbilli did catch him with a hard right, a late spark in a contest already slipping away. Canelo answered with a thudding right of his own, determined to finish the night trading leather, not coasting to the bell.

The cards confirmed what the ring had already shown. Unanimous. Clear. The WBC belt back around Alvarez’s waist.

For a man who has lived almost his entire adult life as a champion, the emotion still spilled out.

"It's so difficult to explain. It's something unbelievable," he said. "Now after 21 years as a professional, 16 years ago I won my first title, now I won the title again… I want to thank everybody back home.

"I knew he was a strong fighter. He didn't throw a lot of punches because it's difficult to throw punches with me... I did perfectly. I'm going to keep learning, I'm going to keep working hard. I'm going to take a couple of weeks off and then come back."

The veteran is a champion again. He doesn’t sound finished.

Munguia survives crisis to keep WBA crown

On the undercard, Jaime Munguia flirted with disaster before grinding out a unanimous decision over awkward southpaw Nikita Zon to retain his WBA super-middleweight title.

Zon gave him problems from the opening bell. Tall, tricky and left-handed, he repeatedly landed heavy backhand lefts, steering Munguia to the ropes and pinning him in corners. The challenger’s timing and angles unsettled the champion, who struggled to impose his usual relentless tempo.

The sixth round nearly tore the belt from Munguia’s waist.

Zon stepped in with a long left uppercut that crashed through and badly rocked the Mexican. Munguia staggered back and Zon pounced, pouring on punches as the champion reeled. The onslaught looked ready to end it, but Munguia, hurt and under siege, refused to go down.

That stand changed everything. When Zon’s pace dipped, Munguia’s stubbornness and engine took over.

As the challenger tired, the champion began to walk him down, putting together heavier shots and controlling the late rounds with authority. By the final bell, the scare had turned into a comeback, the judges returning scores of 116-112 and 117-111 twice in Munguia’s favour.

The belt stayed with him, but the warning was loud.

Espinoza ruthless as Blandon pulled out

Rafael Espinoza needed no such drama.

The towering featherweight handled late replacement Ricardo Blandon with ease to retain his WBO world title, ending matters inside three rounds.

Espinoza’s height, reach and clean punching quickly separated the pair. He drilled a flush cross into the top of the Nicaraguan’s head, opening a nasty cut along Blandon’s eyelid. One look was enough.

After a ringside inspection, the doctor pulled Blandon out at the end of the third, the fight stopped before the damage worsened and Espinoza’s reign rolling on without a blemish.

On a night built around a legend reclaiming a familiar throne, the message from Riyadh was clear: the old king still rules at super-middleweight, and the next generation will have to come and take it from him the hard way.