{"id":678027,"date":"2026-05-18T05:42:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T05:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/678027\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T05:42:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T05:42:12","slug":"oscar-de-la-hoya-sums-up-canelos-comeback-fight-against-christian-mbilli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/678027\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar De La Hoya sums up Canelo’s comeback fight against Christian Mbilli"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oscar De La Hoya<\/a> has weighed in on Canelo Alvarez<\/a>\u2019s clash with Christian Mbilli<\/a>, questioning the Mexican\u2019s ambition as he inches closer towards retirement.<\/p>\n

The 35-year-old has not fought since losing his four world titles to Terence Crawford, whose unanimous decision victory saw him become a three-weight undisputed champion in September.<\/p>\n

With Crawford having subsequently retired and vacated all four super-middleweight belts, though, Canelo is now set to face WBC champion Mbilli<\/a> in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

The pair are scheduled to square off this September, with Alvarez bidding to prove that he remains capable of competing at the top level.<\/p>\n

Mbilli, on the other hand, looks to cement himself as the flagship operator at 168lbs after being elevated from \u2018interim\u2019 to full WBC champion.<\/p>\n

Like Canelo, the Frenchman has not fought since last September, when he boxed to a 10-round draw with unbeaten contender Lester Martinez<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It could therefore be said that Mbilli\u2019s world-class credentials remain somewhat questionable, at least in the eyes of former Canelo promoter De La Hoya.<\/p>\n

Speaking with Fight Hub TV<\/a>, the Golden Boy boss revealed that he does not rate Mbilli as an Alvarez opponent, nor does he see it being a particularly successful event in Riyadh.<\/p>\n

\u201cMbilli, come on. I just don\u2019t like the fight, especially if it\u2019s not going to be here in the US. Again, we have to watch a fight at 9am? I\u2019m just not a fan of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would\u2019ve loved Canelo to fight here in Vegas in September, with all his fans cheering him on. That\u2019s what fight fans wanna experience \u2013 big events.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery fighter has his peak and then you start to see the exit coming. [Canelo\u2019s] a few fights away from retirement, so I don\u2019t blame him for taking the money and running. But I do feel that he has a few good fights left in him against great fighters. Not Mbilli.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Canelo and De La Hoya rarely seeing eye to eye, it is perhaps unsurprising that the two-time Hall of Famer is not the biggest endorser of his former client\u2019s next fight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar De La Hoya has weighed in on Canelo Alvarez\u2019s clash with Christian Mbilli, questioning the Mexican\u2019s ambition…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-678027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}