{"id":786832,"date":"2026-09-29T22:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T22:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/786832\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T22:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T22:56:09","slug":"canelo-alvarez-vs-christian-mbilli-officially-official","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/786832\/","title":{"rendered":"Canelo Alvarez vs Christian Mbilli officially official"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">This news comes less than 24 hours after BoxingScene\u2019s Lance Pugmire <a href=\"https:\/\/www.boxingscene.com\/articles\/official-saudi-arabia-has-yet-to-fund-canelo-alvarez-christian-mbilli-vada-testing\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">brought word<\/a> of some significant lingering issues, notably the fact that VADA has yet to be paid or even contacted for drug testing. In addition, the \u201cMexico vs the World\u201d undercard has yet to be confirmed; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.badlefthook.com\/boxing-news\/117206\/lindolfo-delgado-vs-arthur-biyarslanov-vacant-title-fight-joins-canelo-vs-mbilli\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lindolfo Delgado vs Arthur Biyarslanov for the vacant IBF super lightweight title<\/a> and a title defense for WBO featherweight champ Rafael Espinoza are on the table, but per Pugmire, neither Delgado nor Espinoza has been offered a contract.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The real elephant in the room, however, is the ongoing war in Iran. The U.S.\u2019s high-volume air campaign provoked a series of retaliatory strikes on its Gulf allies, which increased in intensity this summer when the Houthis of Yemen joined the fray. Recent attacks <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/middle-east\/saudi-civil-defence-sends-all-clear-after-danger-warning-capital-riyadh-2026-09-19\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">struck Riyadh\u2019s main airport<\/a> among other \u201csensitive\u201d sites and the State Department <a href=\"https:\/\/travel.state.gov\/en\/international-travel\/travel-advisories\/saudi-arabia.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">implores travelers<\/a> to \u201creconsider\u201d traveling to Saudi Arabia \u201cdue to risk of Iranian drone and missile targeting of American interests, armed conflict, terrorism, exit bans, and local laws regarding social media activity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">To recap, we\u2019re a hair over a month away from showtime with no drug testing, no undercard, and Saudi Arabia\u2019s primary business partner telling people to avoid going there at all costs. I\u2019ve <a href=\"https:\/\/www.badlefthook.com\/boxing-commentary-opinion\/110261\/the-tko-future\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">talked about<\/a> how the entire Riyadh Season exists to indulge Alalshikh\u2019s appetites, with widespread enjoyment an unimportant if welcome side-effect, but this is pushing it even by those standards.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Which is a shame, because the ingredients are there for Canelo\u2019s (63-3-2, 39 KO) most entertaining fight in ages. Mbilli (29-0-1, 24 KO) is a tank of a man whom neither fatigue nor head trauma can prevent from marching forward and slinging heat all night. This is quality boxeo, as the youth like to say, and I\u2019ve got my fingers crossed that geopolitical interference doesn\u2019t take it from us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This news comes less than 24 hours after BoxingScene\u2019s Lance Pugmire brought word of some significant lingering issues,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":786833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,6102,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-786832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-news","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786832","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=786832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}