Canelo Álvarez is not staying home. The 36-year-old Mexican has told reporters that his WBC super-middleweight title fight against Christian Mbilli at Kingdom Arena on October 31 will go ahead as planned, despite the Houthi missile and drone strikes that have hit the Saudi capital’s main airport in recent weeks.
“I see a beautiful Riyadh. I saw in the media a lot of things but I’m always confident about coming to Riyadh,” he said, according to EssentiallySports. “I feel like I’m at home, and I don’t see anything bad.”
A Houthi strike on King Khalid International Airport on October 10 killed at least 12 people and injured more than 300, Saudi authorities said. The following day, Riyadh Season chief Turki Alalshikh wrote on X that Álvarez had “reached out and told me he’ll still fight in Riyadh this October, no matter what happens,” according to Sports Illustrated.
Camp built around Usyk’s Gandía gym
Álvarez spent seven weeks in Gandía on Spain’s east coast, where Oleksandr Usyk keeps a training base and offered the Mexican the use of the facility. The arrangement served two purposes: it brought him closer to Riyadh’s time zone, and it let outside specialists handle strength and conditioning while Eddy Reynoso retained charge of the boxing work.
Read also: Cristiano Ronaldo’s desperate chase for 1,000 goals takes another twist
The fight was originally scheduled for September 12 and was postponed because of a family matter.
Mbilli unbeaten in 30 fights
On the other side of the ring stands a very different problem. Christian Mbilli, the Cameroon-born super-middleweight based in Montreal, has a record of 29-0-1 with 24 knockouts. He won the interim WBC title with a first-round knockout of Poland’s Maciej Sulecki in June 2025 and was elevated to full champion after Terence Crawford retired in December.
That retirement is the backdrop. Crawford’s points win over Álvarez in Las Vegas in September 2025 stripped the Mexican of his undisputed super-middleweight crown. An elbow operation followed, and Álvarez has not boxed since.
DAZN team stays in London
The pay-per-view comes from the same ring, but not from the same city as its commentators. DAZN’s broadcast team will not be ringside, instead calling the fight from a London studio via monitors, according to reporting first published by Dan Rafael on X on October 21.
Read also: Checo joins Formula 1’s rare 300-start club at home
