Jermall Charlo is in pursuit of a shot at Canelo Alvarez, but the Mexican first fights reigning WBC super-middleweight world champion Christian Mbilli.
Canelo is hoping to bounce back from his first ever super-middleweight defeat when he challenges for the WBC crown, whilst ending the longest spell of inactivity in his 68-fight career to date. In the opposite corner is new champion Mbilli, who promises a firefight.
One man with interest in the outcome is unbeaten two-division world champion, Jermall Charlo, who has started his campaign at 168lbs but continues to be hampered by injuries and visa issues.
Regardless, the Texan has been vocal in his desire to make an impression on the super-middleweight scene and ultimately avenge the 2023 defeat of his twin brother, Jermell Charlo, by defeating Canelo.
Speaking to Sean Zittel ahead of this weekend’s action, Charlo said that he is forecasting a win for the Mexican four-division world champion, favouring the experience of the challenger over the exuberant Mbilli.
“Canelo knows what he is doing, he has been on this level before and he is training really hard.
“He hasn’t had a longer camp than me, but he is training and I know that Mbilli is training too, but I think that stylistically Canelo should take that fight.”
‘Hit Man’ also went on to explain why he believes that Father Time will not yet have caught up with 36-year-old Canelo, despite his 21-year professional career.
“He hasn’t been hit that much. Early on on his career, all of those fights when he was young, those were knockout fights that were set up for him to win, he hasn’t really taken any crazy damage besides the Golovkin fights and in the Floyd fight he took a couple punches.
“We have never really seen Canelo hurt, against [Dmitry] Bivol and Terence Crawford, I feel like he breezed through those losses, he is not a beat-up fighter.”
Canelo-Mbilli takes place on Saturday night at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh and can be watched live on DAZN PPV, as Canelo looks to kickstart his comeback in style and return to the super-middleweight throne.
