But in the eighth round, Mbilli’s hopes of a late charge were stalled when referee Hector Afu docked a point for hitting on the back of the head after Canelo gestured to the official following an exchange on the ropes.<\/p>\n
![\"Christian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/skysports-christian-mbilli_7394596.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Image:
\n Christian Mbilli lost out to Canelo Alvarez in their WBC super-middleweight title clash in Riyadh<\/p>\n
“Close fight, hats off to Canelo – a great performance,” Estephan said.<\/p>\n
“As far as the ref, It seemed like he was influenced to take that point off. But I’m not in his shoes. I can’t understand what went through his mind.<\/p>\n
“Regardless, there will be many more big fights for Christian. He belongs.”<\/p>\n
![\"Terence](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/skysports-saul-alvarez-terence-crawford_7275863.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Image:
\n Terence Crawford stunned Canelo Alvarez in the Mexican’s most recent fight last year<\/p>\n
Canelo was returning to boxing a year after his stunning loss to Terence Crawford that cost him his undisputed super-middleweight crown and ended his reign as holder of the division’s four major titles.<\/p>\n
Mbilli was elevated to full WBC champion after Crawford’s departure from the division, having previously held \u2060the interim title with his victory over Maciej Sulecki in June 2025.<\/p>\n
![\"Christian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/skysports-mbilli-boxing_7242710.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Image:
\n Christian Mbilli beat Maciej Sulecki in June 2025 to claim the WBC interim title<\/p>\n
The 31-year-old Cameroon-born boxer had fought to \u200ba split draw against Lester Martinez on the undercard of the Alvarez-Crawford showdown, ending \u200ba run of 29 consecutive professional victories, while the loss now to Cancelo is his first as a professional.<\/p>\n
In a post on Instagram, translated from French, Mbilli wrote: “Last night didn’t go the way I wanted. I’ll learn from this experience, get back in the gym, and come back stronger.<\/p>\n
“Thank you to my team and to all of you for your messages of support.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canelo Alvarez could have “influenced” the referee to take a point off\u00a0Christian Mbilli during their\u00a0world title fight, claims…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":956321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-956320","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\/956320","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=956320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/956321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=956320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=956320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=956320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}