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Canelo Álvarez will face WBC champion Christian Mbilli on September 12 in Riyad

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By Boxing Insider Staff

Canelo Álvarez will return to the ring on September 12 in Riyad to face WBC super middleweight champion Christian Mbilli, His Excellency Turki Alalshikh announced from London on Saturday.

Until the fight, it will have been a year since Álvarez faced Terence Crawford in Las Vegas. According to data released by the organization, the event attracted over 41 million viewers on Netflix, making it one of the most watched boxing broadcasts in history.

Álvarez, the former undisputed super middleweight champion, returns to Saudi Arabia with the WBC title in his sights. The Mexican made nine successful saves during a reign at the top of the league that lasted almost five years before losing the undisputed crown to Crawford last September.

Mbilli’s path to the WBC title

Mbilli will enter the fight as the current WBC champion. The Montreal-based French-Cameroonian won the interim title with a win over Maciej Sulecki in June and was promoted to full champion in January. He remains undefeated and previously appeared on the Álvarez vs. card. Crawford during the Riyad season.

“My last fight was the fight of the year,” Mbilli said in a statement released by the promotion. “In September against Canelo Alvarez, it will be the fight of the decade. And when the fight is over, the world will witness my historic victory.

Canelo in the match

Álvarez, who will turn 36 in July, addressed the decision in a statement.

“After so many years in this sport, my motivation is still the same: to challenge myself, represent Mexico and continue to build my legacy,” Álvarez said. “Mbilli is undefeated and he is a great fighter and I respect that. But my focus is always on preparation, performance and giving the fans another great night of boxing. On September 12 in Riyad, we start a modern chapter with the same discipline, ambition and vision that has accompanied me throughout my career.”

Press conference for Cairo

The press conference is scheduled for Saturday, May 23 at 2:00 p.m. local time in Cairo. This will be the first confrontation between both players.

The card is a continuation of the season’s boxing program in Riyad, overseen by Alalshikh, whose list of events supported by Saudi Arabia over the last two years, it has changed the calendar of sporting events. Riyad season organizers recorded more than 17 million visitors for the 2025 edition, following the 2024 edition which exceeded 20 million.

Broadcast details, ticket information and undercard fights for the September 12 event have not yet been announced.

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Boxing

Robert Garcia says Oscar Duarte will not fight Lindolfo Delgado

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Image: Robert Garcia Says Oscar Duarte Won’t Fight Lindolfo Delgado

Oscar Duarte could have lost the easiest path to the world title without even entering the ring for it.

The IBF is trying to fill the vacant 140-pound championship belt after Richardson Hitchins retired and Duarte (31-2-1, 23 KO) was ready to fight fellow contender Lindolfo Delgado. The problem is that Duarte and Delgado are long-time stablemates under trainer Robert Garcia, and Garcia says this fight is unlikely to happen.


“I had dinner with Pepe Gomez and Memo Rocha, Duarte’s promoter and manager, and we are all convinced that Duarte will not continue on the IBF tour against Lindolfo Delgado unless Duarte says otherwise,” Robert Garcia told Ring.

“But I don’t think that will happen because we work closely together. We all agreed that Duarte will follow the WBC route for his next title fight.”

Garcia also suggested that Duarte’s recent split decision victory over Angel Fierro was influenced by months of uninterrupted preparation after Duarte’s scheduled February title fight against Hitchins ended hours before the evening’s fight when Hitchins fell ill.

“What influenced Duarte in the fight against Fierro was the fact that he kept coming back from training camps. He was overtrained and that’s why his performance wasn’t as good as we expected,” Robert said.

“It affected his physical abilities. He tired himself more than he should have. I think that was the problem, but he dug deep, sucked it up and did what he needed to do to get the win.”

The comments came after Duarte put up a tougher-than-expected fight against Fierro earlier this month in Las Vegas. Fierro entered the fight 3.4 pounds overweight, but Garcia said Duarte’s team still moved forward because they didn’t want another cancellation after the unsuccessful fight against Hitchins.

Garcia also made it clear that he believed Duarte would already be a world champion if the fight with Hitchins had happened.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that Oscar would have beaten Hitchins in February and become the world champion, just knowing how prepared he was for that fight,” Garcia said.

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Last updated: 18/05/2026 at 11:05

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Tim Bradley summarizes David Benavidez’s chances of moving up to heavyweight and defeating Usyk

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Tim Bradley sums up David Benavidez’s chances of moving to heavyweight and beating Usyk

Tim Bradley assessed David Benavidez’s chances of beating Oleksandr Usyk, who still holds three of the four major heavyweight titles.

The Ukrainian returns to action at the Egyptian Pyramids of Giza next Saturday, voluntarily defending his WBC belt against Dutch kickboxer Rico Verhoeven.

Besides this next exit, Usyk will likely be ordered to face “interim” WBC champion Agit Kabayelwho has a chance to win the full green and gold belt this year.

Alternatively, the 39-year-old could vacate his world title, perhaps with the intention of facing newly crowned unified champion Benavidez instead – a fight backed by powerful boxing broker Turki Alalshikh.

“The Mexican Monster” became a three-division world champion earlier this month, dethroning Gilberto Ramirez after the sixth round in his first appearance at 200 pounds.

However, despite his dominant performance, the reality is that Benavidez is not yet a full-fledged cruiserweight, and the 29-year-old admitted that he weighed just 202 pounds on fight night.

Because of this, he will likely drop back down to 175 pounds – where he still holds the WBC title – to face Dmitry Bivol for the undisputed crown.

As for Hall of Famer Bradley, this represents the most reasonable option for Benavidez, who effectively stated in his YouTube channel that the American has no chance of overthrowing Usyk.

“Usyk? Stop. It’s okay to have dreams – it’s okay, you can dream – [but] if you feel David Benavidez can beat Usyk, I’ll gladly take your money.

While Benavidez has always expressed interest in moving up to heavyweight, it appears his main target right now is unified airy heavyweight champion Bivol.

First, Bivol must defeat mandatory challenger Michael Eifert on May 30, but he would certainly be eager to get a chance to become a two-time undisputed champion later this year.

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Boxing

Don King’s Palm Beach Jai Alai site is headed to foreclosure auction

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A foreclosure auction will be held on May 18 at the former Palm Beach Jai Alai frontage, owned by boxing promoter Don King, with residential developers among the parties eyeing the Mangonia Park property and King’s legal team still searching for a solution.

The site at 1415 45th Street has been vacant for more than three decades. King, 93, bought the property in 1999 for $6.3 million, according to property records cited by King. The real deal. The front itself, a 282,800-square-foot structure built in 1973, closed in December 1994 after Florida’s expansion of gambling offerings and a prolonged strike by jai alai players destroyed the sport’s commercial base.

How the auction happened

Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge Scott Kerner entered a $42.5 million judgment in favor of an entity related to Taylor Made Lending, a Pompano Beach-based lender, clearing the way for the May 18 sale. Taylor Made serves as a special entity servicing a syndicate of mortgage investors, including Miami-based Winston Capital Management.

Court documents show that King personally guaranteed three loans secured by the property. The first one, redeemed in 2023, was worth $22.3 million at an interest rate of 13.9% per annum and required monthly payments of $260,000 in interest alone. A second loan for $9 million was made in 2024 at an interest rate of 18.5% per annum, as well as a third loan for $800,000 at an interest rate of 2%. Taylor Made alleged in its complaint that in September, King stopped making monthly interest-only payments of $138,750 on a $9 million loan and failed to repay the $800,000 loan in December when it matured.

The website and its limitations

The property is zoned primarily for office, government, ambulatory, educational and manufacturing uses, with as much as 25 percent of its square footage zoned for retail uses such as pharmacies, restaurants and gyms, according to an offering memorandum prepared by listing broker Art Porosoff of Miami-based Porosoff Group.

Development plans face an infrastructural obstacle independent of exclusion. Mangonia Park City Manager Ken Metcalf said in a March 31 interview that nothing could be built on the 53-acre parcel until the city secured a recent, larger reservoir for immaculate drinking water. Developers tracking the site have introduced a mixed-use redevelopment with thousands of recent homes.

Pattern of distressed holdings

The foreclosure is part of a broader spectrum of King’s real estate problems. In July, a subsidiary of Boca Raton-based construction company Straticon paid $11 million for a warehouse King owned in Deerfield Beach that previously served as the boxing promoter’s headquarters. The warehouse was the subject of a separate foreclosure lawsuit brought by a subsidiary of Miami-based Blueprint Capital Partners over the alleged failure to repay a $5.3 million loan.

Lawyers for King and Taylor Made Lending did not respond to requests for comment from The Real Deal, which first reported the foreclosure auction date.

Previous sales attempts

Since the purchase, King has made multiple attempts to sell the Mangonia Park property. His wife, Henrietta King, bought the frontage in 1999 with plans for a sports complicated that never came to fruition. In the early 2000s, a proposed sale of the apartments to a Boca Raton developer fell through, leading to a lengthy DK Arena v. EB Acquisitions lawsuit that ultimately made its way through the Florida Supreme Court. A separate deal with West Palm Beach-based FRI Investors also fell apart ten years ago.

The property was put back on the market in April 2025 with no asking price, although sources told The Real Deal that King’s team was seeking offers in the $100 million range, or about $2 million per acre.

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