Canelo Álvarez v John Ryder: undisputed super middleweight championship – live

• Boxing’s biggest star faces British contender in Guadalajara
• Send Bryan a tweet at @BryanAGraham or email him

Hello and welcome to Guadalajara for tonight’s main event between Canelo Álvarez and John Ryder. It’s a long-awaited homecoming for boxing’s biggest star as the 32-year-old Álvarez fights in his hometown for the first time in 12 years, putting his WBA, WBC, WBO and IBF super middleweight title belts on the line before an expected capacity crowd at the Estadio Akron, the 50,000-seat home of Liga MX side CD Guadalajara that is expected to host some matches at the 2026 World Cup.

Ryder, the 34-year-old Islington southpaw nicknamed the Gorilla, will go off as a 9-1 underdog in tonight’s fight. He’s a very long shot to succeed where seven others from Britain before him (Matthew Hatton, Ryan Rhodes, Amir Khan, Liam Smith, Rocky Fielding, Callum Smith, Billy Joe Saunders) have come up short. But with Álvarez entering off an uncommonly tepid 2022 campaign (which included a loss to Dmitry Bivol at 175lbs, a by-the-numbers points win over a faded Gennady Golovkin followed by surgery on his left wrist), there’s a sense of hope in Ryder’s camp that tonight’s fight is coming along at the right time. As the great Bert Sugar once wrote: the door to opportunity rarely needs a picked lock, merely the right combination.

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