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Canelo Alvarez is here to stay.
Despite teasing that he might retire with a loss on Saturday, Canelo (59-2-2, 39 KOs) was in fine form as he outworked and outlasted a gritty John Ryder (32-6, 18 KOs) en route to a wide unanimous decision win. The official scores were 120-107, 118-109, and 118-109 in the champion’s favor.
With the victory, Alvarez successfully defended his WBA, WBC, IBF, WBO, and The Ring titles and maintained his undisputed status at super middleweight.
Afterwards, Canelo praised Ryder and also spoke about how special it was to compete in his home country of Mexico for the first time in 11 years. Talk then turned to what might be next for him and he confirmed that he would prefer a rematch with WBA super light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol, who defeated Canelo in May 2022.
“Everybody knows we want the rematch with Bivol,” Canelo said in his post-fight interview. “If the fight doesn’t happen, then we’ll see.”
He went on to insist that the circumstances be the same as their first fight, with Canelo going up in weight once again to challenge Bivol.
Though Canelo clearly deserved to win on points, Ryder has nothing to be ashamed of. For 12 rounds, Ryder hung with the champion, consistently wading through punches to close the distance and attempt to go to work inside. However, Canelo was able to establish his jab and repeatedly land his power right hand, which was too much for Ryder to overcome.
After being bloodied in the early rounds of the fight by a clean punch to the face, Ryder was in the most trouble in Round 5 when a stiff 1-2 combination wobbled him and left him on one knee. Ryder answered the count and survived a follow-up flurry from Canelo to avoid the knockout. From there, Canelo continued to assert his dominance, though a 40th career KO win eluded him.
That’s two straight wins now for Canelo since his loss to Bivol, following a decision win over longtime rival Gennady Golovkin this past September. For Ryder, he sees a four-fight win streak snapped.
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