Canelo Alvarez has his return fight lined up, and it is not the Terence Crawford rematch he wanted after losing his undisputed super middleweight crown.
Alvarez is set to face Christian Mbilli in September in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with Mbilli’s WBC super middleweight title on the line. The matchup gives Canelo a direct route back to championship status after his unanimous decision loss to Crawford in Las Vegas in September 2025.
The Ring reported that Canelo and Mbilli have a done deal for the fight, with Mike Coppinger credited on the report.
‼ BREAKING: Canelo Alvarez and Christian Mbilli have a done deal to fight in September in Riyadh for the WBC super middleweight championship, The Ring’s @MikeCoppinger has learned.
Canelo will attempt to regain a world title in his first fight since his loss to Terence… pic.twitter.com/GFagZYAIMF
— Ring Magazine (@ringmagazine) April 30, 2026
Canelo enters this booking with a record of 63-3-2 with 39 knockouts. His only professional defeats have come against Floyd Mayweather Jr., Dmitry Bivol, and Crawford, which explains why a comeback fight still carries major weight even after a rough night against one of the sharpest boxers of this era.
The Mexican star has won world titles from light middleweight to light heavyweight and became the first undisputed super middleweight champion in boxing history in 2021. He later became a two-time undisputed champion at 168 pounds, so this is not just another date on a Saudi boxing calendar. It is Canelo trying to get a major belt back after Crawford no longer held the WBC title.
Christian Mbilli Gets The Biggest Fight Of His Career
Mbilli brings an unbeaten 29-0-1 record with 24 knockouts into the biggest assignment of his career. The Cameroonian-French Canadian boxer has held the WBC super middleweight title since January 2026 after being elevated from interim champion.
His rise was not built on soft numbers. Mbilli beat Sergiy Derevyanchenko by unanimous decision in August 2024, stopped Maciej Sulęcki in the first round in June 2025 to win the interim WBC belt, then retained that interim title after a split draw with Lester Martínez in September 2025. Now he gets the kind of fight that can turn a respected champion into a much bigger name overnight.
The Crawford piece still hangs over the division. Canelo wanted another shot after the loss, but Crawford retired unbeaten at 42-0 as a four-division champion. With that rematch off the table, Alvarez’s next title route runs through Mbilli instead, while the Canelo-Crawford fight week remains the turning point that pushed this matchup into place.
For Mbilli, beating Canelo would be the defining win of his pro career. For Canelo, beating Mbilli would put a major world title back around his waist and give him a cleaner argument that the Crawford loss was not the start of a slide.
