Canelo retirement has been put on hold, with the Mexican admitting he is no rush to retire ahead of Saturday’s Canelo vs Mbilli super middleweight title fight.
Canelo challenges Mbilli for his WBC title in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, live on DAZN pay-per-view.
Alvarez heads in as a strong favourite with the oddsmakers. However, he is heading in off a unanimous decision defeat to Terence Crawford last September.
In fact, it was only the third defeat of the Mexican’s 68-fight professional career and Alvarez lost his undisputed super middleweight crown in the process.
As a result, many believe the four-weight world champion is coming towards the tail end of his career. However, he insists he has no plans to retire any time soon.
Canelo retirement ruled out
“I feel pretty good,” he told Stephen A. Smith. “My body feels pretty good.
“Everything is there and I just want to keep fighting.
“When I’m going to retire? I don’t know. I want to go fight-by-fight.
“I don’t want to think about retirement right now.
“There’s not many fights out there for me anymore.
“I’m going to fight four or five fights more.”
That suggests a Canelo Alvarez retirement is still a couple of years away, with the 36-year-old targeting a final run of big fights before hanging up the gloves
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Canelo Mbilli stakes
Meanwhile, the WBC upgraded Mbilli to full world champion after Crawford retired and vacated his titles.
Consequently, a win would give Canelo a world title back and quieten talk of him retiring, while a second straight defeat would only increase questions about his future.
Before that, Lester Martinez held the Frenchman was held to a split decision draw on the Canelo vs Crawford undercard and Alvarez believes his style is made for him.
“Mbilli is a great champion,” he added. “He throws a lot of punches. He’s aggressive, but styles make fights.
“I think this kind of style will make for a good fight.
“It’s a perfect style for me. It’s always great fights with these kind of styles.
“I’m a counter-punch fighter, so it’s going to be a perfect style for me.”
Ultimately, if Canelo is right about the match-up, a convincing victory on Saturday would push any Canelo retirement talk even further down the road.
