Canelo Alvarez seeks to win back one of his super-middleweight world titles when he collides with Christian Mbilli on Saturday night. Ahead of the fight, longtime trainer of rival Gennadiy Golovkin, Abel Sanchez, has revealed his final prediction.
Alvarez represents all three blemishes on the 42-2-1 record of ‘Triple G’, drawing with and then twice defeating the hard-hitting Kazakh in their iconic trilogy in the middleweight and then super-middleweight division, where Canelo successfully defended his undisputed title.
Canelo would go on to lose his four belts to Terence Crawford, but he can recover one this weekend when he bids for Mbilli’s WBC strap.
Speaking to Sean Zittel, Sanchez – who trained Golovkin for nine years and two Canelo clashes – praised the mentality and discipline of the Mexican four-division world champion.
“Every coach should look at his [Canelo’s] discipline and his work ethic. He may not have the best technique, he may not have the best [footwork] but he just seems to be a hard, disciplined worker in the gym and, as a coach, you can’t look for any more than that.”
When it came to the fight itself, Sanchez described Mbilli as ‘limited’ and admitted that he is favouring a Canelo win, refusing to read too much into the veteran’s defeat to Crawford.
“Mbilli is very limited as far as what he does. Canelo has a lot more tactics that he uses.
“I think that Canelo still beats him. Canelo is still working hard, I haven’t seen him grow old, he tried against Terence [Crawford] and Terence is a great talent, so it is always going to be difficult against Terence.
“Everybody else, he has dominated from the fifth/sixth round on, so I see Canelo winning.”
Canelo-Mbilli takes place on Saturday, October 31, live on DAZN PPV, with reigning world champions Jaime Munguia and Rafael Espinoza also set to appear on the bill.
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