{"id":435368,"date":"2026-01-27T00:47:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T00:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/435368\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T00:47:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T00:47:10","slug":"undefeated-ko-artist-vows-to-win-canelos-old-belt-and-then-beat-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/435368\/","title":{"rendered":"Undefeated KO artist vows to win Canelo’s old belt and then beat him"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canelo Alvarez<\/a> faces a climb back to the top after losing his undisputed title and there is one super-middleweight who is hoping to benefit, after being unable to land a fight with the Mexican when he had the belts.<\/p>\n

Canelo became a two-time undisputed champion of the division when he outpointed William Scull in an underwhelming points victory back in May, but the flaws of the 35-year-old were capitalided upon later that year.<\/p>\n

In September, Terence Crawford secured one of the most impressive victories of the modern era as the former lightweight world champion conquered a fifth division and became just the second three-division undisputed champion in boxing history.<\/p>\n

Crawford has since opted to retire from the sport<\/a> off the back of his career-best win and thus the titles have become fragmented, but one man who may be poised to benefit is Cameroon-born Christian Mbilli.<\/p>\n

Mbilli has held the WBC interim title since June and is expected to fight for the vacant WBC super-middleweight world title upon his next outing, but Canelo (WBC #1) and Hamzah Sheeraz (WBC #2) have both turned down the chance to appear in the opposing corner.<\/p>\n

Speaking with The Ring<\/a>, undefeated Mbilli \u2014 who has 24 knockouts from 29 wins \u2014 revealed plans to fight Canelo after he has won the vacant belt, believing his title shot to be long overdue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe division was locked up with Canelo.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, I think there are more opportunities because you have a lot of big talents. We are waiting to be world champion. Now I think it\u2019s time for me and other boxers to have a chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I will be WBC world champion very soon and after this. I want to be the division\u2019s No. 1. I don\u2019t know if Canelo wants to fight again. I\u2019ll take the opportunity to beat him if I have that but first I want to be world champion.\u201d<\/p>\n

It now appears likely that a rematch with Lester Martinez (WBC #3) could crown the WBC\u2019s new 168lb champion, following on from their fight of the year contender and draw on the Canelo-Crawford undercard just four months ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canelo Alvarez faces a climb back to the top after losing his undisputed title and there is one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-435368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}