Canelo Alvarez scraps September 18 date, eyes November return

Canelo Alvarez will once again miss out on fighting during Mexican Independence Day weekend. Eddie Hearn announced on Twitter that the unified super middleweight champ is now “focused on a return to the ring in November.

Canelo (56-1-2, 38 KO) hasn’t actually fought in September since 2018, when he narrowly edged out Gennadiy Golovkin in their excellent rematch.

After his impressive finish of Billy Joe Saunders for the WBO belt in May, all signs pointed to Canelo facing Caleb Plant for undisputed status. They got all the way to the contract stage, but talks imploded at the last minute over what Plant claimed were unreasonable demands on Canelo’s part.

Matchroom switched gears and tried to put together a clash with WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol, but with fight night just six weeks away, they ran out of time.

Canelo now has a bit of breathing room to find a new opponent. One would imagine, however, that Bivol is still on the table. The Russian has long claimed he’d drop to 168 for a Canelo fight if given enough time to make the cut, which he now appears to have. Whatever the case, the Canelo Sweepstakes is officially back up and running.