Christian Mbilli and Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez made weight for their world title bout in Riyadh just 24 hours after two ballistic missiles were intercepted over the Saudi Arabian capital.<\/p>\n
Mbilli, 31, was elevated to WBC super-middleweight champion in January and makes his first defence against Mexico’s Alvarez, 36, on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Both fighters tipped the scales at 12st (76kg) before engaging in a tense but respectful face-off.<\/p>\n
Alvarez, who will step into the ring for the 69th time on Saturday, made his professional debut almost exactly 21 years ago on 29 October 2005.<\/p>\n
“This is very important for me, I’ve been doing this for 21 years and won my first world title 16 years ago. It’s important for me to win a title again,” Alvarez said.<\/p>\n
“My experience is different, he hasn’t faced anyone like me and I’ll teach him tomorrow.”<\/p>\n
Doubts have been raised in recent weeks about whether the event can take place safely due to the growing conflict between Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Houthi movement.<\/p>\n
The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) currently advises against all but essential travel to the whole of Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Saudi Press Agency reported the Civil Defence had intercepted two ballistic missiles over Riyadh. A civilian sustained a minor injury and there was damage to a house and vehicle due to falling shrapnel.<\/p>\n
Earlier in October, a missile strike on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport killed 13 people and wounded more than 300<\/a>.<\/p>\n Travel arrangements for those attending Saturday’s bout have been complicated by restricted access to the airport.<\/p>\n While other sporting events in Saudi Arabia – including The Six Kings Slam tennis exhibition<\/a>, the final round of the 2026 World Rally Championship<\/a> and the 2026 Urban Cycling World Championships – have been cancelled the combat sports world has not followed suit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christian Mbilli and Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez made weight for their world title bout in Riyadh just 24 hours…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":819080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-819079","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\/819079","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=819079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/819080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=819079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=819079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=819079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}