Saul “Canelo” Alvarez has a new WBC super-middleweight belt and only one fight on his mind.

Minutes after beating Christian Mbilli by unanimous decision at The Venue in Boulevard City, Riyadh, on Saturday, 13 months after losing all four of his super-middleweight belts to Terence Crawford, Alvarez used his post-fight interview to push for a rematch with the retired American.

“Let’s hope [Crawford comes out of retirement]. Let’s hope so. Honestly, we’d love to have that rematch,” he told Fight Hub TV. “Like I said, if not, we’ll keep moving forward with our career, but hopefully that fight can happen.”

A one-sided night with one swing round

The judges turned in scores of 117-110, 116-111 and 115-112, all for Alvarez. Mbilli, the previously undefeated Cameroonian-French champion, came out as advertised, pushing Alvarez onto the ropes and throwing in bursts for most of the first five rounds.

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From the sixth, the fight changed. Alvarez timed Mbilli’s entries, countered with a sharp right uppercut in the seventh, and began walking the champion down from the center of the ring. By the later rounds Mbilli’s output had dropped off sharply, with one ringside writer noting that the Cameroonian-French fighter shifted from trying to win to trying to finish on his feet.

The swing moment came in round eight. The referee deducted a point from Mbilli for a punch behind the head after Alvarez complained, a decision that turned a close card into a comfortable one. Mbilli landed a clean right hand in the 12th but backed off when Alvarez waved him forward.

Alvarez was never dropped and never visibly hurt. The win moved him to 64-3-2; Mbilli’s unbeaten record ended at 29-1-1.

“Like I’d just won it for the first time”

For a fighter who has held every major title at 168lb, the emotion afterwards was striking. Alvarez, who turned professional at 15, told reporters he felt as he had after winning his first world championship 16 years ago.

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“It’s so difficult to explain. It’s something unbelievable,” he said, before adding that he planned to rest briefly and then get back to work.

A rematch with Crawford is Alvarez’s stated target, but the American announced his retirement after their September 2025 fight and has so far shown no sign of changing his mind. If that fight does not materialize, The National’s list of options puts Britain’s Hamzah Sheeraz and WBC interim champion Lester Martinez near the front of the queue, with IBF holder Osleys Iglesias and the winner of January’s WBO title fight between Jacob Bank and Janibek Alimkhanuly also in frame.

Mbilli: “A lesson”

Mbilli stayed quiet on the night and spoke publicly only after the weekend. On Instagram, he posted that the fight “didn’t go the way I wanted,” thanked his team, and said he would be back in the gym. It was his first professional defeat.

Alvarez said he will take a short break before returning to camp, with a March date floated by promoters as the earliest realistic target.

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