{"id":217915,"date":"2025-06-27T06:29:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T06:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/217915\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T06:29:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T06:29:10","slug":"canelo-alvarez-will-avoid-special-christian-mbilli-pursue-relatively-easy-fights-says-bob-arum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/217915\/","title":{"rendered":"Canelo Alvarez Will Avoid ‘Special’ Christian Mbilli, Pursue \u2018Relatively Easy Fights\u2019, Says Bob Arum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Turki Alalshikh mentioned Christian Mbilli recently as one of the fan-friendly fighters he would like to see appear on the Canelo Alvarez-Terence Crawford undercard<\/a> Sept. 13 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
According to Bob Arum, Mbilli\u2019s co-promoter, that would be as close as he could come to sharing a ring with the Mexican superstar. Mbilli<\/a> (28-0, 23 KOs) is the WBC\u2019s No. 1 contender for one of Alvarez\u2019s super middleweight titles and would become the mandatory challenger if he defeats Poland\u2019s Maciej Sulecki (33-3, 13 KOs) for the interim 168-pound championship Friday night at Videotron Centre in Quebec City, Canada<\/a>.
Arum doesn\u2019t believe that will be enough to persuade Alvarez<\/a> (63-2-2, 39 KOs) to face the dangerous 30-year-old from Cameroon, Africa.
\u201cOf course not,\u201d Arum told The Ring<\/a>. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing to gain for Canelo to fight him. If he gets by Crawford, [Canelo’s] gonna look for relatively easy fights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mbilli obviously wouldn\u2019t qualify as a \u201crelatively easy\u201d challenger.<\/p>\n

The Quebec-based Mbilli isn\u2019t exactly mindful of defense, but he is an aggressive, hard-hitting pressure fighter who rarely stops throwing punches as he comes forward. His offensive prowess is among the factors DraftKings considered when it established Mbilli as an overwhelming 25-1 favorite to win a 12-round, 168-pound title clash ESPN+ will stream as its main event Friday night (6 p.m. ET; 11 p.m. BST).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Mbilli is special,\u201d Arum said. \u201cHe\u2019s really good, really strong, a good puncher, he\u2019s got a great chin and he has a great future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Top Rank and Eye of the Tiger Management, which also handles Mbilli, attempted to make a bout with Diego Pacheco<\/a> for Friday night. Pacheco is the WBO\u2019s No. 1 contender for another of Alvarez\u2019s championships and Mbilli was ranked second.
Los Angeles\u2019 Pacheco (23-0, 18 KOs) will instead fight Trevor McCumby<\/a> (28-1, 21 KOs) on July 19 in a fight DAZN will stream from Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas. Arum still thinks his company, Top Rank Inc., can make significant fights for Mbilli at super middleweight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will get good fights for him,\u201d Arum said. \u201cI don\u2019t think Canelo is gonna be a fixture in the division. Canelo, if he beats Crawford, which I don\u2019t think he will, he\u2019s gonna look for some easy touches, finish the contract [with Riyadh Season], make his money and retire. He\u2019s not looking to take any chances. I think Mbilli would beat Canelo. I think [David] Benavidez would beat Canelo. I don\u2019t think Canelo is Canelo anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alalshikh announced this week that British contenders Hamzah Sheeraz<\/a> and Chris Eubank Jr<\/a>. are potential opponents for Alvarez after the undisputed super middleweight champion faces Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs).
Sheeraz (21-0-1, 17 KOs) would need to beat Brooklyn\u2019s Edgar Berlanga (23-1, 18 KOs) on July 12 as part of The Ring\u2019s pay-per-view show at Louis Armstrong Stadium in Queens<\/a>, New York, to become a viable option for Guadalajara\u2019s Alvarez. Eubank (35-3, 23 KOs) would have to defeat rival Conor Benn (23-1, 14 KOs) for a second time in their rematch<\/a>, which is expected to take place sometime in the fall, to remain in contention for a shot at Alvarez\u2019s Ring, IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO 168-pound championships.<\/p>\n

Keith Idec is a senior writer and columnist for The Ring. He can be reached on X @idecboxing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Turki Alalshikh mentioned Christian Mbilli recently as one of the fan-friendly fighters he would like to see appear…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,10188,10181,10187,10186,10179,4496,10182,10183,10184,10185,10180,10193,10192,10175,10173,10174,10190,10176,10172,10194,10189,79,10191,10171,10178,16,15,10177],"class_list":{"0":"post-217915","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-boxing-community","10":"tag-boxing-fights","11":"tag-boxing-history","12":"tag-boxing-interviews","13":"tag-boxing-magazine","14":"tag-boxing-news","15":"tag-boxing-photos","16":"tag-boxing-rankings","17":"tag-boxing-results","18":"tag-boxing-schedule","19":"tag-boxing-videos","20":"tag-disqualification","21":"tag-draw","22":"tag-fight","23":"tag-fighter","24":"tag-fighter-news","25":"tag-knockout","26":"tag-latest-boxing-matches","27":"tag-ring","28":"tag-ring-magazine","29":"tag-split-decision","30":"tag-sports","31":"tag-technical-knockout","32":"tag-the-ring","33":"tag-top-fighters","34":"tag-uk","35":"tag-united-kingdom","36":"tag-upcoming-boxing-matches"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}