Much to the chagrin of David Benavidez, Canelo Alvarez will face off against Christian Mbilli for his WBC Super Middleweight title on Sept. 12, 2026 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The fight will be Canelo’s first since getting losing his titles Terence Crawford in Sept. 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada via via unanimous decision.
Mbilli was promoted to undisputed champion after Crawford was stripped of the title not long after defeating Canelo. Mbilli is undefeated at 29-0-1 and was last seen defeating Maciej
Sulęcki via first-round knockout in June 2025. Now, the French-Cameroonian is cashing in on his biggest payday against the man many still considered the face of boxing.
The two men took part in the kickoff press conference recently in Cairo, Egypt to promote their fight. While there, both men took in all the festivities with several current boxing stars such as Terence Crawford and Anthony Joshua, who are all in town to take in the WBC Heavyweight title fight between Oleksandr Usyk and Rico Verhoeven.
Needles to to say, Canelo’s confidence is sky high going into his next title fight and made it known to the champion that even though he has the belt he has zero chance to beat him come fight night.
“You’re no Golovkin… if I’m 50 years old right now, you couldn’t beat me,” said Canelo during the pre-fight presser. Check out their previous staredown in front of the Pyramids.
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