Shawn Porter thinks Canelo Alvarez only has to be good enough, and that Christian Mbilli will make him look better than that.
Canelo returns on October 31 in Riyadh, challenging Mbilli for the WBC super middleweight title. It is his first fight since losing all four belts to Terence Crawford last September, and his first since elbow surgery.
Porter gave his read on The PorterWay Podcast. He does not think age is the issue.
Canelo truly does have that fast twitch; he is explosive, but he is explosive with speed and quickness and that fast twitch is going to get Canelo to that mark a little bit quicker.
His grading system did the rest.
Yeah, I think [he can still do it] at 36. If you think about it, even though Canelo is not that ‘A++’ fighter that he used to be, he is still a solid ‘A’ and that solid ‘A’ will beat a solid ‘B’ [in Mbilli].
That solid ‘B’ will make a solid ‘A’ look like an ‘A++’, so I think that he is going to look ‘A++’.
Mbilli has never lost. He won the WBC interim title by stopping Maciej Sulecki, drew with Lester Martinez over 10 rounds on the Canelo and Crawford undercard, and moved up to full champion after Crawford retired and vacated all four belts.
The rest of the division did not wait for Canelo. Jaime Munguia holds the WBA title and Osleys Iglesias took the IBF version by stopping Pavel Silyagin.
The Riyadh card runs under a Mexico vs. The World banner. A bantamweight unification between Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez and Christian Medina is expected to support it, though that has not been finalized.
