Canelo Alvarez beat Christian Mbilli by unanimous decision, 117-110, 116-111, 115-112, over 12 rounds in Riyadh to reclaim the WBC super middleweight title. It was the Mexican's first fight in more than 13 months, since his loss to Terence Crawford, and it lifted his record to 64-3-2 with 39 knockouts. Mbilli suffered the first loss of his career and drops to 29-1-1. Canelo landed a four-punch combination and a right uppercut in the seventh round, and in the eighth the referee deducted a point from Mbilli for hitting behind the head. It was a champion's return, and Alvarez struggled to put it into words: "Difficult to explain this feeling... Unbelievable. This feels like my first title."
He also shared the instructions from his trainer, Eddy Reynoso: "Use your jab and keep boxing and do what Canelo does." On his opponent's lack of output, he added: "He does not throw a lot of punches because it is difficult to throw punches with me." In the co-main event, Jaime Munguia retained his WBA super middleweight title with a decision win over Nikita Zon. Rafael Espinoza defended his WBO featherweight belt after a cut above Ricardo Blandon's eye forced the fight to be stopped in the third round.
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