{"id":567174,"date":"2026-03-28T19:43:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T19:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/567174\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T19:43:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T19:43:07","slug":"he-wants-his-belt-back-canelo-as-close-as-ever-to-world-title-comeback-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/567174\/","title":{"rendered":"“He wants his belt back”: Canelo ‘as close as ever’ to world title comeback fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

A big update has been provided ahead of Canelo Alvarez<\/a>\u2018s planned return to the ring.<\/p>\n

His last fight took place in September when he defended his undisputed super-middleweight crown against Terence Crawford, but the Mexican superstar suffered an upset unanimous decision loss.<\/a><\/p>\n

His hopes of securing a rematch with Crawford were ended when \u2018Bud\u2019 announced his retirement in December, with Canelo instead recovering from elbow surgery<\/a> and targeting a return to action later this year, which is set to take place in Saudi Arabia in September.<\/p>\n

A number of opponents have been linked to a clash against Alvarez, but it seems that one world champion is the current frontrunner to secure the bout.<\/p>\n

Speaking to FightsATW<\/a>, promoter Camille Estephan claimed a clash between Canelo and his fighter Christian Mbilli is \u2018as close as ever\u2019 to happening.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Canelo wants to fight Mbilli and Mbilli wants to fight Canelo. We have spoken many times, and the will is there to make it happen.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s as close as ever. Christian has the WBC title, and Canelo wants it back, but we don\u2019t want to give it back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mbilli has an unbeaten record of 29-0-1, with 24 of those wins coming by knockout. He became interim WBC super-middleweight champion last year, stopping Maciej Sulecki inside one round in June before a draw against Lester Martinez three months later.<\/p>\n

He has since been elevated to full WBC champion following Crawford\u2019s retirement, and after spending several years stating his desire to secure a clash against Alvarez, it appears he could be on the brink of his wish becoming a reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A big update has been provided ahead of Canelo Alvarez\u2018s planned return to the ring. His last fight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-567174","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\/567174","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=567174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}