Canelo's Next Fight: Is Hamzah Sheeraz Next After Mbilli?

Canelo Alvarez's next fight has not been announced. He beat Christian Mbilli by unanimous decision in Riyadh on Saturday 31 October 2026 to win back the WBC super middleweight title, and Britain's Hamzah Sheeraz, who was ringside, is the name The National puts first for what comes next, and the one Forbes calls the most logical. Canelo vs Sheeraz, the fight British fans keep asking about, is still not confirmed. There is no date, venue or contract, and after the fight Canelo said he would take a couple of weeks off and then come back.

Last updated: 1 November 2026, the day after Canelo beat Mbilli.

Here's the tea. Sheeraz has been “next for Canelo” more than once. Turki Alalshikh put his name in the frame in 2025, and Frank Warren had a February 2026 date in mind. When Sheeraz won the WBO title in May with Canelo watching from ringside, it looked like a formality. Then Canelo told him to go and earn it, Sheeraz made it clear he does not take instructions, and in September Sheeraz handed his world title back rather than take a mandatory defence.

Sheeraz was ringside when Canelo lost to Terence Crawford in 2025, he said in July he would be ringside again in Riyadh, and on 31 October he was. Funny how that keeps happening. Here is everything that has actually been said, and what changed on 31 October.

Canelo vs Mbilli result: WBC champion again in Riyadh

Canelo challenged Mbilli for the WBC belt at the top of a Riyadh Season card billed as “Mexico vs The World”, live on DAZN pay-per-view in the UK, and won a unanimous decision. On the same night Jaime Munguia kept his WBA super middleweight title against Nikita Zon, and Rafael Espinoza kept the WBO featherweight title against the late replacement Ricardo Blandon, ESPN reported. The fight was first set for 12 September and was moved to 31 October.

It was Canelo's first fight since he lost his undisputed super middleweight crown to Crawford on 13 September 2025. A comeback against an unbeaten champion is not how most 36-year-olds would choose to return, and he came out of it with the belt. “It's something unbelievable, this feeling. Like my first title,” he said afterwards, as The National reported.

Mbilli went in unbeaten at 29-0-1 with 24 knockouts and came out 29-1-1, his first professional defeat, on ESPN's figures. Born in Yaoundé, Cameroon, he boxed for France at the Rio 2016 Olympics, won the interim WBC title by stopping Maciej Sulecki in the first round in Quebec City in June 2025, and fought Lester Martinez to a split draw in Las Vegas that September. The WBC elevated him to full champion on 27 January 2026, and Canelo was his first defence.

Christian Mbilli, in red for France, against Ukraine's Dmytro Mytrofanov at the Rio 2016 Olympics, 8 August 2016. Photo: Boxing AIBA, CC BY-SA 2.0

He has never been shy about Canelo. “I think Canelo is very old right now. He's not the same Canelo from five to 10 years ago, but that's normal,” Mbilli told The Ring in September 2025. In fight week he went with the classic: “I'm ready to shock the world.” All three judges disagreed.

Canelo kept it calm in fight week. “I'm the challenger now,” he said. “But guess what? Always in my mind, I'm the champion since I was a little kid.” Then came the line that matters for everyone queuing up behind Mbilli: “I don't believe in shortcuts. I want to be a champion again, and I want to face the best.”

Late ring walks come with every big fight night, and Fury vs Joshua in Cardiff on 11 December has a very late one planned, as our Fury vs Joshua start time guide explains.

Is Canelo vs Sheeraz happening? Where things stand

Not yet. No promoter has announced it, no date or venue has been reported, and nobody has said a contract exists. Canelo's own position, from May, was “after my fight, we'll see.” That fight has now happened, and his first words on what comes next were about a break. “I'm going to rest,” he said, as The National reported. “And right now I'm going to be a couple of weeks off and then come back.”

What has changed is the reporting. The National wrote on 1 November that Sheeraz “was ringside on Saturday night and would appear to be the most likely opponent”, and Forbes's Brian Mazique made the same case. That is reporting, not an announcement. One wrinkle: the original pitch was champion against champion. In September Sheeraz gave up the WBO title, so he is now an unbeaten former champion with no belt, and a Canelo fight would be about the two names rather than a unification.

The rumour trail: who said what, and when

2025: Turki puts Sheeraz in the frame

The trail goes back to June 2025, to a roundtable with The Ring's Mike Coppinger and Rick Reeno, where Alalshikh was asked who Canelo would face after Crawford. “It's going to be against one of the two options, Sheeraz or Eubank,” he said. Then Sheeraz flattened Edgar Berlanga in New York on 12 July, and Dan Rafael reported that Alalshikh had promised him a 2026 fight with Canelo.

A few days later Alalshikh went further on The Ring's YouTube channel: “In my plan, there is Hamzah, Mbilli, and maybe one day, Benavidez.” Fifteen months on, Mbilli got there first, and David Benavidez has moved up to cruiserweight, a story we cover in Usyk vs Benavidez. Of the three names, Sheeraz is the only one still waiting.

Late 2025: the February date that vanished

Warren had a plan. According to The Ring, Sheeraz was due to fight Canelo in February 2026 if the Mexican came through the Crawford fight unscathed. He didn't. Crawford beat him on points at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on 13 September 2025, in front of 70,482 people, and in October Canelo had surgery on his left elbow. “I don't know what we will do now,” Warren told The Ring on 15 October. “But Hamzah won't be sitting around on his backside.”

Allegiant Stadium, Las Vegas, where Canelo lost to Crawford, 4 September 2021. Photo: Ken Lund, CC BY-SA 2.0

In September 2025 Alalshikh wrote that Canelo had two fights left with Riyadh Season in 2026, and Mbilli was Canelo's first fight since that post. By January Warren was still pushing. “I would make him and Canelo tomorrow, if they would stand for it,” he told Box Nation, backing Sheeraz to win.

May 2026: ringside in Giza, and “earn it”

On 23 May Sheeraz knocked out Alem Begic with a body shot in the second round to win the vacant WBO title in Giza, with Canelo watching from ringside. DAZN Boxing posted the obvious headline: “Hamzah Sheeraz wants Canelo next.” Sheeraz stayed polite. “To share the ring with him would be an honour, and to get the opportunity, I'll definitely be getting the win, for sure,” he said. His manager, Spencer Brown, was less subtle: “We march on to the face of boxing Canelo,” he said. “That's the fight we want.”

Canelo's reply came on the Mr Verzace Podcast, as The Ring reported on 26 May. He wanted Sheeraz and the IBF champion Osleys Iglesias to fight each other first. “I think they need to fight each other and then I fight the winner,” he said. “That's the most smart thing they can do. We all need to earn what we deserve and they need to earn it.” Polite. Still a slap.

A few days later, asked by reporters whether he would take a Sheeraz fight to England, he softened it a touch: “Yeah, we'll see after. Why not?”

June to September: Sheeraz bites back, then shrugs

Sheeraz was not having the homework. In early June he sat down with talkSPORT Boxing, whose video ran under the headline “Canelo CAN'T Tell Me What To Do!” He said he respected Canelo, but not enough to let him choose his opponents, and La Opinión reported that he would not be bothered if the fight never happened.

By the end of the summer the tone had cooled. After a scrappy title defence in July he said: “I need a step up now, someone who will mentally present a challenge.” In September he told Big Fight Weekend: “He's a legend of the sport. If the fight happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it doesn't.” Then, in the same interview: “It'd be an absolute honour to share the ring with him. And I think it'd be a fire fight for sure.” That is not a man who has moved on.

Why Sheeraz gave up the WBO title

In August the WBO ordered Sheeraz to defend against his mandatory challenger, Janibek Alimkhanuly, the former middleweight champion. Sheeraz told The Ariel Helwani Show that his team had tried to talk to the WBO and had “got nothing back”, and he floated a unification fight instead: “I think that [a unification fight] overrides it but I could be wrong, but that is another option.”

Queensberry won the purse bid in September, outbidding Top Rank, and proposed 28 November or 5 December in London, Birmingham or New York, ESPN reported. Then, on 18 September, Queensberry told the WBO that Sheeraz “has elected not to proceed with the contest and has voluntarily relinquished his WBO Super Middleweight World Championship.” The Ring reported that he did not feel there was enough money in the fight.

Warren didn't hide his feelings. “Very, very disappointed,” he said in an interview reported by Boxing News 24 on 24 September. “It was a purse bid. We bid the highest amount of money for it.” He also said Queensberry still has Sheeraz under contract. If the words “mandatory” and “purse bid” are new to you, our guide to common boxing terms explains how both work.

You can read it two ways. Critics say Sheeraz walked away from a hard fight. The other reading is that a fighter with a clear diary is waiting for a bigger phone call, and only one man at 168lb makes that call worth the wait.

Who is Hamzah Sheeraz?

Sheeraz was born in Slough, Berkshire, on 25 May 1999 and signed with Frank Warren's Queensberry on his 18th birthday. He made his professional debut at the Copper Box Arena in London on 16 September 2017, stopping Duane Green in the second round. He stands 6ft 3in, boxes from an orthodox stance, works with the trainer Andy Lee and is 24-0-1 with 19 knockouts.

Copper Box Arena, London, where Sheeraz made his professional debut, 31 July 2022. Photo: Daniel from Glasgow, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0

He built his name at middleweight, collecting the WBC Silver, Commonwealth and European titles, and a London crowd saw him stop Liam Williams in the first round in February 2024. Then came Riyadh: an 11th-round stoppage of Austin Williams in June 2024, and a split draw with Carlos Adames for the WBC middleweight title in February 2025 on the Beterbiev vs Bivol 2 card. One judge had it 115-114 for Sheeraz, one 118-110 for Adames and one 114-114.

The Berlanga night that started all this

Sheeraz's case for Canelo was built in one evening at Louis Armstrong Stadium in Queens, New York, on 12 July 2025. It was a WBC eliminator on The Ring's DAZN pay-per-view card and his first fight at super middleweight. He dropped Berlanga twice in the fourth round and finished him early in the fifth.

Louis Armstrong Stadium, Queens, New York, during the US Open tennis, 28 August 2018. Photo: G. Capo, CC BY-SA 4.0

Here's why that result landed so hard. Berlanga's only defeat before that night was to Canelo, who beat him on points over 12 rounds at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas in September 2024. Canelo needed the full distance. Sheeraz needed less than five rounds. That kind of comparison sells fights whether it means anything or not. Our guide to T-Mobile Arena's big fight history covers the arena where Canelo beat Charlo, Munguia and Berlanga.

Afterwards Sheeraz refused to play the trash-talk game. “I'm not gonna sit here and loudmouth someone like [Canelo],” he told The Ring, before making a promise that has followed him ever since: “even if I get knocked out, I will stand there and trade with him.”

A world champion in the shadow of the pyramids

The WBO title came at the Pyramids of Giza on 23 May 2026, on the undercard of Oleksandr Usyk vs Rico Verhoeven. A left hook to the body in round two left Begic unable to beat the count. Nine weeks later Sheeraz defended it at the Jeddah Superdome on 25 July, on the card topped by Anthony Joshua vs Kristian Prenga, and was taken the distance by Germany's Simon Zachenhuber. The cards read 116-112, 115-113 and 114-114.

Sunset over the Pyramids of Giza, Egypt, 17 January 2023. Photo: Spottedviper, CC BY-SA 4.0

“I got the win, that's all that matters. I could make a million excuses. I'll be better in the next fight,” he told ESPN. A flat defence on a Joshua undercard is not the ideal launch pad for a Canelo call-out, though big undercards have made plenty of British names, as our high-profile undercard fights page shows.

Canelo at 36: what's left?

Canelo Alvarez at a Las Vegas media event before his 6 May 2017 fight with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, video still, 2017. Photo: Box Azteca, CC BY 3.0

Canelo was born in Guadalajara on 18 July 1990 and, after beating Mbilli, is 64-3-2 with 39 knockouts on ESPN's figures. He has won world titles in four weight classes, became the first undisputed super middleweight champion in history in 2021, was undisputed again in 2025, and on 31 October 2026 became WBC champion again. His three defeats came against Floyd Mayweather in 2013, Dmitry Bivol in May 2022 and Crawford in 2025.

Mayweather, now 49, is talking about a comeback of his own, covered in Ryan Garcia vs Floyd Mayweather. Canelo's recent wins have all come on points: John Ryder, Jermell Charlo, Jaime Munguia, Berlanga, then William Scull in Riyadh in May 2025, after he signed a four-fight Riyadh Season deal that February. Mbilli went the distance too.

Canelo Alvarez working on a heavy bag in training, video still, 2017. Photo: Box Azteca, CC BY-SA 3.0

Sheeraz doesn't buy the decline story. “I don't see it being the end of Canelo, and I'll tell you why,” he told The Ring in September. On Crawford: “Crawford is Crawford. He's a special fighter.” On Canelo's recent fights: “He'd make anyone look bad.” A compliment, or a man keeping the fight worth having. Probably both, and 31 October did nothing to prove him wrong.

Tale of the tape: Canelo vs Sheeraz

Seven and a half inches of height and four and a half of reach is a lot to give away. Tony Bellew told DAZN in July: “If there's stuff missing from Canelo then Sheeraz could be the fighter to exploit that, as his size and range could be all wrong for a Canelo who's not 100%.” He gave the flip side too: “if he has a lot left then he's too experienced and too clever for Sheeraz at this point if I'm being honest.” Then the line that sums up this article: “We'll know everything once Canelo has faced Mbilli.” He has now faced Mbilli and won all three scorecards, which on Bellew's logic is bad news for Sheeraz.

What the Mbilli win means for Canelo vs Sheeraz

Canelo gets to choose

Canelo holds the WBC belt again, so the next move is his. Alalshikh's 2025 plan had Sheeraz in it, and Sheeraz turned up ringside in Riyadh to make the point in person.

He will have company, though. The IBF champion Osleys Iglesias, who stopped Oliver Zaren on 8 October, told The Ring before the fight: “Whoever wins though, I want to fight him. For me, it doesn't really matter.” Munguia kept the WBA belt against Zon on the same card. Both of them have the one thing Sheeraz handed back in September. That is the strongest argument against Sheeraz being next, and Canelo made it himself in May.

Jaime Munguia, who kept the WBA title on the same Riyadh card, pictured 18 November 2021. Photo: International.Boxing.Entertainment, CC BY-SA 4.0

What the defeat means for Mbilli

Mbilli was Sheeraz's other road to a big fight, on paper at least. In December 2025 the WBC ordered Mbilli vs Sheeraz for its then-vacant title, and that fight never happened because Sheeraz took the WBO route. Had Mbilli won, that would have been the bigger fight. Instead he has his first defeat.

The rest of the queue

The National set out five options for Canelo on 1 November, in this order:

• Hamzah Sheeraz, ringside in Riyadh and first on the list.
• Lester Martinez, the WBC interim champion, also ringside, who has won twice since drawing with Mbilli.
• Janibek Alimkhanuly or Jacob Bank, who are scheduled to meet for the vacant WBO title in January.
• Osleys Iglesias, the IBF champion, if Canelo wants to keep unifying.
• Terence Crawford, who announced his retirement after beating Canelo, though Canelo has talked about a rematch.

Sheeraz at the top is the strongest sign yet, but it is a newspaper list, not a contract.

Could Canelo vs Sheeraz happen in the UK?

Canelo said “why not?” when he was asked about England in June. DAZN's Andrew Steel called a Canelo fight in Britain “a white whale for British fight fans”. Canelo has beaten plenty of British fighters, but none of the six fights below took place in Britain.

Sheeraz hasn't boxed in Britain since he stopped Tyler Denny in London in September 2024. His last four fights were in Riyadh, New York, Giza and Jeddah, and two of Canelo's last three, Scull and now Mbilli, were in Riyadh. My guess: Saudi Arabia or Las Vegas is the safer call, and London is the dream. That is a guess, not anybody's plan.

The Ring, owned by Alalshikh, is behind Tyson Fury vs Anthony Joshua with Dana White at Principality Stadium, Cardiff, on 11 December, so the appetite for giant fights on British soil is obvious. Nothing links Canelo to a UK venue yet.

My read: does Canelo vs Sheeraz happen?

Cards on the table: I now think Sheeraz is the likeliest next opponent, though nothing is signed. The case against has not gone away: the queue has men with belts in it, and in May Canelo told Sheeraz to earn his shot against another champion first. Sheeraz then gave his own belt back. That is a strange way to chase a unification fight.

What puts him in front is everything around the ring. Alalshikh named him in 2025, Warren wants it, Sheeraz has the size and the unbeaten record, he keeps turning up ringside, and a British opponent brings a British audience with him. Boxing News reported in June that Sheeraz was hoping for Canelo in 2027, around Canelo's regular Cinco de Mayo date, and my guess is spring 2027. That is a guess, not a report. If anyone jumps the queue, watch Iglesias.

And if it does happen? Sheeraz's own promise was to “stand there and trade”. Against Canelo, that is either the bravest plan in boxing or the worst one. I'd want a seat to find out.

Any date and venue will go on our Canelo vs Sheeraz event page as soon as one is announced, and you can register your interest in hospitality there now. For the rest of the calendar, see our major international bouts, world championship title fights and major boxing fights pages, or our boxing hub. Our explainer on how big fight tickets are released is worth five minutes first.

Photo credits: Mbilli at Rio 2016, Boxing AIBA, CC BY-SA 2.0. Allegiant Stadium, Ken Lund, CC BY-SA 2.0. Copper Box Arena, Daniel from Glasgow, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0. Louis Armstrong Stadium, G. Capo, CC BY-SA 4.0. Pyramids of Giza, Spottedviper, CC BY-SA 4.0. Canelo in Las Vegas, Box Azteca, CC BY 3.0. Canelo training, Box Azteca, CC BY-SA 3.0. Jaime Munguia, International.Boxing.Entertainment, CC BY-SA 4.0. Canelo against Amir Khan, Box Azteca, CC BY 3.0.