Canelo vs Mbilli in Riyadh: WBC Super Middleweight Title Fight, Result Awaiting Confirmation

The fight billed by organizers as "Mexico vs. the Rest of the World" took place, according to most sources, on Saturday, Oct. 31, at The Venue in Riyadh. Saul "Canelo" Alvarez faced France's Christian Mbilli for the WBC super middleweight title. The bout was originally set for Sept. 12, but Riyadh Season moved it to late October.

Before the fight Mbilli kept saying he had come to surprise the world — and in boxing, where the favorite is almost always known in advance, such words usually count for nothing. But there's a nuance: Canelo is second on Forbes' 2026 list of the world's highest-paid athletes, and for him every fight is now like a film premiere, where the hero is expected to deliver not just a win but a spectacular one. For Mbilli, it is a chance to become the division's biggest name in a single night.

I could not find the result at the time of writing: the results page listed the fight as awaiting confirmation, and one set of search results showed a headline about a Canelo win over a different opponent, William Scull, with no clear date, so it did not make it into this piece. Once the official record and the judges' scores appear, the evening edition will return to this fight.