Lewis Watson Uncrowned Sun, November 1, 2026 at 5:25 AM UTC · 11 min read About Our Ads Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The eyes of the boxing world were on Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Saturday night, as Riyadh Season put on a puglistic showcase titled, "Mexico vs. the World."
On a night when Saul "Canelo" Alvarez became a three-time super middleweight champion , who were the overall winners and losers of the event?
Alvarez is a world champion again, regaining the WBC 168-pound title 13 months after losing it to Terence Crawford .
It was Christian Mbilli whom the Mexican great defeated Saturday night, winning via unanimous decision and giving us a glimpse into what Alvarez has left in the tank .
Was it vintage Alvarez? No. But after a slow start in which he seemed content sitting on the ropes, playing possum and tucking up to Mbilli's attacks, Alvarez began moving his feet, catching and countering, and punishing the Frenchman's advances with sharp riposte and some clubbing, signature left hooks.
The control came in the second half of the fight. Alvarez — like he has done to a litany of fighters — decided Mbilli couldn't hurt him and, importantly, couldn't beat him to the punch in the important exchanges. In the championship rounds, Alvarez was even able to turn the tables and become the front-foot fighter.
Is Mbilli a bona fide world-class super middleweight? Probably not, but Alvarez can only beat who is put in front of him. And looking at the current crop of super middleweight contenders, there are plenty more names — and paychecks — for the Mexican to work through on what could turn into a pre-retirement tour.
What's next for Alvarez? Well you'll have to ask Turki Alalshikh. "Canelo" still has a fight left on his contract with Saudi Arabia, so you'd imagine boxing's most influential matchmaker will want something significant and head-turning for his prized asset.
Will he find that scanning down the list of current super middleweight contenders? The WBC's interim champion is Lester Martinez. The other champions are Osleys Iglesias and Jaime Munguia, whom Alvarez already defeated. So perhaps not.
Knowing some of the curveballs that Alalshikh has thrown our way over the last couple of years, it would be a shock if he was eyeing up an all-Mexican affair between Alvarez and David Benavidez — a fight that has been on a long-running collision course, made harder in recent years by Benavidez's recent jumps in weight.
But if Alvarez can't get the dance partners, expect him to start targeting some of the arenas left on his boxing bucket list — namely, Mexico City's historic Estadio Azteca .
Jaime Munguia found himself in a Round of the Year contender Saturday.
Munguia is fun, isn't he? They say that skills pay the bills, but entertainment sells tickets.
Munguia clung to this WBA super middleweight title, surviving scare after scare against the unheralded Nikita Zon , narrowly avoiding a huge upset after repeatedly getting hurt.
And did we witness a 2026 Round of the Year contender in Round 6 as both men traded near fight-ending blows after their own barrages of sustained attacks?
It's perhaps a damning indictment of the 168-pound landscape that Munguia finds himself sitting near the top of it. There are glaring holes in his game, but few can question his willingness to have a go. He is as game as they come and, with the title still draped over his shoulder, should make for some interesting defenses.
Bektemir Melikuziev is likely next in line. But after Saturday night, Munguia hardly looks like an immovable obstacle. There will be plenty of contenders watching the tape and fancying their chances.
But a win is a win, and Munguia wakes up on Sunday morning with a sore head as a world champion — and with a queue forming at his door.
It's sort of an unwritten rule in boxing: When you're handed a late-replacement opponent, you have to get the fighter out of there.
That's exactly what Rafael Espinoza did to Carlos Blandon in the fifth defense of his WBO featherweight crown , stopping the challenger in three rounds after the ringside doctor advised the referee to stop the fight following a cut to Blandon's left eye.
It was a sharp, well-timed right hand that did the damage to the scarred eye socket of Blandon, giving Espinoza his 29th career win alongside his 24th stoppage to stay unbeaten.
In truth, it won't be a fight that will live long in the memory. Espinoza will have been a featherweight world champion for three years once we hit December and bigger fights and harder tests are now well overdue.
The all-singing, all-dancing Espinoza said post-fight that he wants unification fights at 126 pounds, and he also wants to fight Naoya Inoue in Japan — but he didn't exactly shout it to the hilltops.
He spent more time signing to the crowd than he did giving any further details of how his 2027 might play out. And who could blame him when you have a voice like that?
Team Mexico got off to a pretty slow start on the night, rubber-stamped by the big upset of the evening as David Picasso lost via split decision to Carl Jammes Martin.
And you'd have to have a heart of stone to deny the dancing of "Wonder Boy" as he grabbed the WBC Silver featherweight title from Picasso despite suffering a knockdown in Round 7.
It was a nip-and-tuck affair across a very competitive 10 rounds. It could have gone either way on the scorecards, but Martin got the nod and extended his unbeaten professional record to 29-0 (21 KOs).
Martin has spent a majority of his career fighting in his native Philippines, but now with a recognized name on his record, he will attract a lot more attention in the 126-pound division.
France's Christian Mbilli (L) will not look back fondly on his performance against Alvarez.
I'm reluctant to lay into Mbilli too much.
DAZN's commentary team was very critical of the Frenchman's unwillingness to engage with Alvarez down the stretch, gift-wrapping his WBC world title to the man who has owned it twice before.
But it's a tale as old as time. It's easy to sit there and tell a fighter to just go for broke — but if you can't find the openings to land these bombs, then you're going to get found out with counters quickly.
"He didn't throw a lot of punches, because it's hard to throw punches with me," Alvarez said post-fight in the ring, stressing that point.
Fellow super middleweight Gabriel Rosado posted on X : "You can obviously see there's a tear on Mbilli [sic] left bicep," and perhaps some excuses will come out in the days that follow. But when Alvarez is on, you have to be pretty close to perfect to beat him.
Mbilli is only 31 years old and will rebound from this. It's the first loss of his career and he had enough moments in Saturday's fight to bolster his career-highlights package.
It's Riyadh Season, baby — and for boxing, it's a case of everybody acting like nothing is happening and nothing is wrong . It's that meme of the dog sitting having a cup of coffee while his house burns in the background.
That shouldn't be a surprise. Boxing is, after all, the black sheep of sport and often finds itself veering into its own lane, unbothered by the pile-up it leaves behind.
We knew the story heading into this weekend's card: The Iran-backed Houthi rebels of Yemen are at war with a Saudi-led coalition, and Riyadh — more specifically King Khalid International Airport — was turned into a battleground across October.
But despite the cancellation or postponement of other sporting events due to take place in Riyadh, "Mexico vs. the World" went ahead.
Alalshikh, the head honcho of Riyadh Season, was disturbingly silent.
That silence is the most telling part of all. There was very little in the way of public reassurance and little explanation of why this particular event is proceeding while others have been pulled from the calendar. Instead, the boxing machine kept rolling, seemingly determined to punch through the noise outside the ring.
Turki Alalashikh celebrates with Saúl "Canelo" Álvarez.
And that is where the sport's peculiar relationship with Saudi Arabia becomes difficult to ignore. Boxing has spent the past few years following the money to Riyadh, happily accepting the enormous purses, grandiose production and promise of fights that once seemed impossible to make.
But when the conversation shifts from spectacle to security, the answers become harder to find.
The audience looked patchy and uninterested in Riyadh. This event alienated thousands of fans that could — and should have — witnessed an Alvarez fight live. That's if sense prevailed and Saturday's event was relocated west to the United States or perhaps Mexico.
Let's get it straight: "Bek the Bully" got screwed in October.
The dangerous Uzbek, now 30 years old, should have been fighting Jaime Munguia on this card for Munguia's WBA crown at 168 pounds, but instead Melikuziev got ignored by the champion and the sanctioning body.
Munguia was ordered to face No. 1 contender Melikuziev next, with the WBA giving both camps until Oct. 21 to reach an agreement — but the champion and his team refused, opting to invite Zon to Riyadh instead to challenge for the title.
The WBA claimed to have not approved the fight and promised to "review the situation," but in typical sanctioning body style, it stayed quiet afterward, leaving it until fight week for the chips to fall.
According to Mike Coppinger on the DAZN broadcast, Melikuziev's team accepted a step-aside deal late this week, on the condition that Melikuziev faces Munguia within the next 90 days. The agreement also includes a 60-40 purse split in favor of the champion.
After weeks of administrative limbo, it seems we've found a resolution. But would anyone really be surprised if this fight fell through again?
And considering Munguia's shortcomings against Zon on the night, Melikuziev will be going to bed tonight convinced he would have finished the job that the Russian was able to start.
After Espinoza stopped Blandon, we headed back into the DAZN studios to find Chris Mannix describing the stoppage as "extremely premature."
Now, I am no doctor. And I'm pretty sure Chris Mannix isn't a doctor, either.
But I do know who is a doctor. And that's Neil Scott, the chief medical officer of the British Boxing Board of Control from 2017 up until June of this year. Scott is still on the British Boxing Board of Control medical panel and independently contracted by the sport's leading promoters.
"I wonder what the doctor was looking at," Mannix continued. "How much experience does that doctor have in professional boxing? Because that is not the kind of cut that is deep enough to stop any fight, let alone a championship fight."
Scott's judgment should be trusted by fighters who put their lives on the line.
I get it: Mannix is paid to give his opinion. But Scott is paid to look after the health and safety of boxers — and I know which I deem more important.
Say what you want about Zuffa Boxing and Dana White — and believe me, I have — but there were moments Saturday when you couldn't help wishing their production team had been handed the keys.
White has made no secret of his desire to bring some UFC-style urgency to boxing broadcasts. That means cutting out the seemingly endless gaps between fights, ditching the unnecessary filler and, above all, keeping the action moving.
After watching fewer than five rounds of boxing across two-and-a-half hours of the broadcast before Munguia vs. Zon, you can understand the appeal.
To be fair, Kate Scott, Malik Scott and Mannix deserve some credit for keeping the conversation ticking over during the lengthy wait. They had an arena full of super middleweights to call upon for interviews, at least, as everyone patiently waited for — and I quote — "Turki Alalshikh to take his seat."
A novel reason to keep a boxing audience waiting, if nothing else.
Source: Sports
0 Comments