It wasn't the boxing card I was expecting.

The boxing card took place, featuring the main event between Saúl “Canelo” Alvarez and Christian Mbilli—a card titled “Mexico vs. The World”—held in Saudi Arabia.

I have to admit that the card caught my attention, and I had high expectations for seeing Alvarez back in the ring, since he’s undoubtedly one of the best boxers of this generation. However, the card left me with a bad taste in my mouth because it didn’t live up to my expectations—it turned out to be much more boring than I’d anticipated.

I grew up watching boxing—my dad is a huge fan of the sport—so I grew up watching great boxers. On top of that, I used to watch old boxing matches to see the sport’s legendary greats. So when I watch boxing today, I tend to compare it to what I used to watch when I was younger.

Now, let’s get back to what I saw in this card. In the first few rounds, Mbilli looked pretty good, I’d say—he looked strong, throwing punches—lots and lots of punches—and moving around the ring, which initially caught my attention because, to be honest, I hadn’t really had him on my radar.

I saw a slightly slower Canelo, but he’s undoubtedly still very strong. In the early rounds, the Mexican was waiting to counterpunch; although he was taking a few blows—nothing too significant, mind you—Mbilli managed to land a few of his own.

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Something that caught my attention about this boxer is that if Mbilli were faster, he’d be a threat to the division. He throws a lot of punches but doesn’t land them on his opponent’s body. Mbilli isn’t that effective, but something the commentators kept pointing out during the fight is that he usually throws almost twice as many punches as his opponents, so if he worked on his effectiveness, I’m sure all those punches would add up more on the scorecards.

The fight didn’t go as I expected; I felt it was a boring fight with not much action. Both fighters had a style that wasn’t very exciting, in my opinion, and in the end, I didn’t see many power punches. Another factor that might have contributed to the fight feeling boring was the unusual time slot—though I realize that probably has nothing to do with it—so I don’t have to think I was dozing off for most of the fight.

As the rounds went on, Mbilli seemed to run out of ideas. I don’t know if his game plan didn’t work out as he’d hoped or if he just couldn’t execute it the way he wanted to. What stood out was a rather strange one-point deduction that I don’t even want to talk about.

So, Canelo Álvarez regained the WBC super middleweight title with a unanimous decision victory over Mbilli and extended his winning streak. It’s worth noting that “Canelo” is coming off elbow surgery that has kept him out of the ring; however, knowing that, I understand why the fight wasn’t all that spectacular.

Canelo was superior to Mbilli at every turn, and that’s something to keep in mind. When it comes to boxing today, the fights I watch that truly entertain me are the lightweight bouts—those are definitely worth watching.