{"id":722145,"date":"2026-08-01T04:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T04:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/722145\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T04:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T04:00:08","slug":"paulie-malignaggi-predicts-upset-in-canelo-alvarez-vs-christian-mbilli-world-title-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/722145\/","title":{"rendered":"Paulie Malignaggi predicts upset in Canelo Alvarez vs Christian Mbilli world title fight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Paulie Malignaggi believes one man\u2019s sheer intensity and work rate will prove decisive when Canelo Alvarez squares off with Christian Mbilli.<\/p>\n<p>Their super-middleweight encounter is taking place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on October 31, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.co.uk\/boxing\/story\/_\/id\/49428066\/canelo-vs-mbilli-gets-new-official-date-october-riyadh\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Canelo citing family matters as the reason for its postponement<\/a> from September 12.<\/p>\n<p>Yet still, the Mexican is entering a WBC title shot after <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/news\/terence-crawford-defines-career-with-remarkable-canelo-alvarez-victory\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">losing his undisputed crown to Terence Crawford<\/a>, who emerged with a unanimous decision victory last September.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Bud\u2019 then vacated his four belts after announcing his retirement in December, allowing Mbilli to be elevated from \u2018interim\u2019 to full WBC champion at 168lbs.<\/p>\n<p>The Frenchman had defended his interim title with a 10-round draw against Lester Martinez on the Canelo-Crawford undercard, producing a performance that perfectly reflected his high-volume style.<\/p>\n<p>With over a year of inactivity, though, it remains to be seen whether Mbilli will be equally relentless against Alvarez, who appears to be nearing the end of the road.<\/p>\n<p>But despite losing to Crawford, the 36-year-old arguably delivered his most impressive performance in a good few years, perhaps suggesting that he is not quite over the hill.<\/p>\n<p>According to a <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/cJMP9mzReMU?si=CpdMWtoP75fi5_m8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">FightHype<\/a> interview with former world champion Malignaggi, however, Canelo\u2019s decorated career could finally come to an end against Mbilli, despite him being a strong favourite to win with the bookmakers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think he\u2019s going to beat Mbilli, because I think Mbilli brings too much of a pace and one thing Canelo hates is a [high] pace.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGod forbid he beats Mbilli, he\u2019ll trap that [WBC] belt again. [He won\u2019t] give any of the good fighters a shot at it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019ve just gotta move on, dude. You had your career \u2013 it was a good career, congratulations \u2013 now get the hell out of here.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLook how the super-middleweight division has blossomed since this guy got beat [by Crawford].\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The remaining champions at 168lbs include Hamzah Sheeraz, Osleys Iglesias and Jaime Munguia, who respectively hold the WBO, IBF and WBA belts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paulie Malignaggi believes one man\u2019s sheer intensity and work rate will prove decisive when Canelo Alvarez squares off&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-722145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=722145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}