Canelo Alvarez Says Love of Boxing Still Drives Him
Canelo Alvarez still talks about boxing the way a fighter does when the money is no longer the point. In a DAZN sit-down ahead of his Oct. 31 challenge of Christian Mbilli, the four-division champion said the sport is a feeling he cannot put into clean sentences.
The interviewer asked him to explain why he loves it. Alvarez did not reach for a speech.
“I love boxing,” Alvarez said. “Oh, it’s very, it’s so complicated to say why. No, because it’s something you can’t explain. It’s just a feeling.”
He sat with his arms crossed, the 1980 cap pulled low, and kept circling the same idea. The respect comes first. The work in the gym is how he shows it.
“You just feel it and you can’t explain that feeling, but it’s something I respect so much, I love so much,” Alvarez said. “And when I go to the gym, I do my hundred percent because I love boxing, and I don’t wanna disrespect boxing.”
That line is the news inside a promotional clip. Alvarez is 36 and 63-3-2 with 39 knockouts. He has not fought since Terence Crawford took his undisputed super middleweight titles by unanimous decision on Sept. 13, 2025, in Las Vegas.
Crawford later retired. The WBC elevated Mbilli from interim champion to full champion. Alvarez vacated rather than meet the mandatory on the original calendar, then signed to challenge for the belt on Halloween.
Mbilli is 29-0-1 with 24 knockouts. The Cameroon-born, Montreal-based champion last boxed a split draw with Lester Martinez on the Crawford undercard. For Alvarez it is a first trip back as the challenger since 2022.
The date slipped once already. The pairing was aimed at Sept. 12 in Riyadh before a family matter and a crowded Riyadh Season calendar pushed it to Oct. 31 on DAZN pay-per-view.
Alvarez has said elsewhere that he no longer boxes because he needs the purse. In this clip he made the same case without talking about money at all.
“That’s why every time I step in the gym, I try to learn something different,” Alvarez said.
Asked if he would keep boxing for the rest of his life if he could, he did not hedge for long.
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s very difficult to say no.”
That is the version of Alvarez the sport still sells, and the version that has to show up against an undefeated puncher who has called him old. A second straight loss would change more than a ranking. It would test the claim that the gym still gets 100 percent.
The feeling he described is the same one that carried him from the Mayweather loss in 2013 to titles at 154, 160, 168, and 175. It is also the feeling that has to survive a year-plus layoff, elbow surgery after Crawford, and a 31-year-old champion who has not lost.
Oct. 31 is the first chance to see whether the words still match the work. Alvarez says he cannot explain the love. He says he will not disrespect it. Mbilli is the man in the opposite corner who will decide if that is still enough.