Why the time is now for Canelo Alvarez to prove that he still has it on the elite, championship level

Alvarez takes on a hungry Christian Mbilli on Saturday with a point to prove to fans, pundits and himself

Oct 29, 2026 at 12:14 pm ET • 6 min read

With the exception of the ongoing political tensions in the region, the biggest question facing Saturday's super middleweight title bout in Saudi Arabia is quite simple.

How much does 36-year-old Mexican superstar Canelo Alvarez have left after 68 fights and 21 years as a professional?

Alvarez (63-3-2, 39 KOs) will snap a 13-month layoff following elbow surgery when he challenges Christian Mbilli (29-0-1, 24 KOs) inside Kingdom Arena in Riyadh (1 p.m. ET, DAZN PPV) for the WBC title that Alvarez lost via unanimous decision in his last appearance against Terence Crawford in 2025.

For the record, Alvarez is listed as high as a 3-to-1 betting favorite against the hard-charging Mbilli, a 31-year-old native of Cameroon who fights out of Montreal. But given Mbilli's conditioning and aggressive style, along with the concern as to how hungry Alvarez still is, especially after the humbling nature of seeing Crawford, two weeks shy of his 38th birthday, move up effectively three weight divisions to defeat him in their superfight.

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On the pre-fight "Face Off" show produced last month by DAZN, Alvarez and Mbilli answered questions while seated across the table from one another. Alvarez was asked directly whether he has any doubt in the back of his mind that he has lost a step from the multiple peaks of his prime, which includes titles in four weight divisions, a three-year stretch as the sport's pound-for-pound king and a 2021 run to the undisputed championship at super middleweight.

With a cold, emotionless look on his face, Alvarez quietly responded by saying, "No, I'm very good."

In fact, the only time Alvarez showed emotion of any kind was when Mbilli, in a respectful but matter-of-fact tone, shared his belief that his opponent was old.

"Yes, [Alvarez] is old now, but he is still very dangerous," Mbilli said. "He has very good power, a good counter punch [but] I think it's the best timing for me to have this fight. I think maybe his power has gone down just a little bit. I think five years ago, he was at a different level, but now he's a little bit down, I think."

The response brought out a sinister smile from Alvarez, who could only laugh.

"He's going to find out," Alvarez said. "Not even if I am 50 years old, he can't beat me. It's just different levels. He's going to find out that this level is way different.

"You need like 10 of you to beat me."

If we're inspecting it with a microscope, Alvarez's decline in recent years has been very gradual. But if it's possible to find a marker in the sand when he effectively peaked for the final time, it would be 2022.

Alvarez entered that year fresh off the most active stretch of his elite run, where he recorded four victories in an 11-month stretch, including three wins over unbeaten champions at 168 pounds and three of them by stoppage. Whether it was sensational wins over Callum Smith, Billy Joe Saunders or Caleb Plant, Alvarez was operating at the top of his game and could seemingly do whatever he wanted, from walking down his foes to countering from the outside or choosing to outslick them technically.

But in May of 2022, the daring-to-be-great nature that defined Alvarez's career effectively found its ceiling when he moved back up to light heavyweight and was physically handled in a close yet convincing decision loss to unbeaten champion Dmitry Bivol, marking Alvarez's first loss in nine years.

Even though Alvarez won his next two fights over the next year in decisions over Gennadiy Golovkin (in their trilogy bout) and John Ryder, he looked noticeably flat and had to fight off late rallies from both. But talk around the sport that Alvarez had noticeably lost a step was explained away by the fact that he pushed through both training camps with a wrist injury in order to delay surgery that left him unable to push as hard in preparation.

Yes, following surgery, Alvarez went on to win his next four fights over the next two years leading up to the Crawford bout. But, all four fights went to the scorecards – further extending Alvarez's knockout draught – and all four opponents appeared either overwhelmed (Jermell Charlo, William Scull) by the moment and unwilling to engage or simply not on the same skill level (Jaime Munguia, Edgar Berlanga).

Alvarez then entered the Crawford fight as the betting favorite with perceived advantages in everything from age and size to power, but was ultimately outworked and outthought at every turn in a competitive decision loss that elevated Crawford on his way into retirement to the pantheon of the all-time greats, along with the title of being the best of his era.

In reality, the loss didn't change much for Alvarez historically. Not only has he been the singular face of the sport for more than a decade, but he's arguably the greatest boxer in Mexico's legendary history. Yes, he lost a trio of his biggest fights against fellow all-time greats in Floyd Mayweather, Bivol and Crawford but he also owns wins over Miguel Cotto, Sergey Kovalev (at light heavyweight), Erislandy Lara and twice defeated Golovkin in their highly disputed rivalry.

The biggest thing the Crawford loss did was make Alvarez's legion of fans come to the reality that he's no longer the same guy, whether Alvarez himself wants to believe it or not.

"When you lose, you always look back at your mistakes, and at this level, there's very little between a win and a loss," Alvarez said during the final week of his training camp in Spain. "I did a good job of preparing for the [Crawford] fight, but throughout fight week, my mind wasn't there. I always say, I don't want to look back on things. Now, I'm going to learn from that [fight] and look towards Mbilli. I think his style is perfect for me to go against and will make for a great fight."

From an entertainment standpoint, it's hard to disagree with Alvarez about Mbilli. Regardless of the result, the fight will be all-action and largely contested on the inside, not just because an aging Alvarez is no longer willing to chase (see the 2025 Scull fight) as he once did against Lara and Austin Trout, but because Mbilli only knows one way: forward.

Last September, on the Crawford-Alvarez undercard, Mbilli endured the lone blemish on his resume in a non-stop brawl against unbeaten Lester Martinez that was lauded as one of the best fights of the year. Mbilli left any thoughts of defense in the locker room and fought at a hellacious pace for all 10 rounds but was unable to break the equally durable Martinez in a fight that was ruled a split draw and left Alvarez less than impressed.

"They throw punches like crazy and, of course, that is good," Alvarez said. "But it's not boxing."

If Alvarez is still even 70% of who he was in 2021, he should handle Mbilli by disciplining him with his accurate, crushing counter shots, with the possibility of scoring his first knockout since the Plant fight not out of the question. But if he's not, Mbilli is the wrong opponent at the wrong time with good power, a swarming style, tons of confidence and a hunger to make his name known on a global level.