{"id":753899,"date":"2026-08-29T20:46:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T20:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/753899\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T20:46:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T20:46:07","slug":"paulie-malignaggi-sums-up-canelos-chances-of-winning-christian-mbilli-comeback-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/753899\/","title":{"rendered":"Paulie Malignaggi sums up Canelo&#8217;s chances of winning Christian Mbilli comeback fight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former world champion Paulie Malignaggi has highlighted an area of weakness that could see <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/canelo\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Canelo Alvarez<\/a> fall glaringly short against Christian Mbilli.<\/p>\n<p>The two super-middleweights will square off in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on October 31, with Alvarez having not fought since his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.co.uk\/boxing\/story\/_\/id\/46224012\/canelo-alvarez-terence-crawford-live-updates-boxing-results-round-round-analysis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">unanimous decision defeat to Terence Crawford<\/a> last September.<\/p>\n<p>Back then, the Mexican hardly disgraced himself but, even so, he was convincingly dethroned by the more dynamic Crawford, who became a three-division undisputed king before announcing his retirement the following December.<\/p>\n<p>In doing so, \u2018Bud\u2019 relinquished his four major titles at 168lbs and afforded Mbilli an upgrade from \u2018interim\u2019 to full WBC champion.<\/p>\n<p>Like Alvarez, the Frenchman has not fought since September 2025, when he <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/news\/christian-mbilli-retains-wbc-interim-title-with-draw-against-lester-martinez\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">battled to a 10-round draw against Lester Martinez<\/a> on the Canelo-Crawford undercard.<\/p>\n<p>From a stylistic perspective, many would describe Mbilli as a high-volume pressure fighter while Canelo, traditionally speaking, is more of a counterpuncher who prefers to fight at a slower pace.<\/p>\n<p>Malignaggi has therefore told <a href=\"https:\/\/youtube.com\/shorts\/jJEf36JGYpY?si=9DUbgaZY4cmnUjJh\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Fight Hub TV<\/a> that, while having proven to be the more skilful operator, Alvarez is unlikely to disrupt the frenetic pace at which Mbilli typically fights.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think Canelo beats Mbilli. I think Canelo\u2019s more skilled than Mbilli but I don\u2019t think, at 36 years old, fighting at a [high] pace \u2013 when you couldn\u2019t handle a fast pace in your prime \u2013 is the smartest thing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI get the competitiveness of Canelo and I respect it, actually. But it\u2019s a tough fight. Mbilli usually makes up for his lack of skills [by setting a high pace].\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If Mbilli retains his title against Canelo, he will likely be ordered to face the winner of Lester Martinez vs Luka Plantic, which takes place for the WBC \u2018interim\u2019 belt this weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former world champion Paulie Malignaggi has highlighted an area of weakness that could see Canelo Alvarez fall glaringly&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":753900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-753899","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\/753899","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=753899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/753900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}