Canelo Alvarez announces comeback fight, gets candid about how much time he has left in boxing

Saul "Canelo" Alvarez has already had a professional boxing career spanning more than 20 years and 68 fights. On Wednesday, just days after he turned 36 years old, the Mexican superstar opened up about how much time he believes he still has left in the sport.

>"Maybe three, four more fights for me there, because I have other goals out of boxing too," Alvarez revealed on Uncrowned's "The Ariel Helwani Show," while also announcing a rescheduled date of Oct. 31 for his WBC super middleweight title challenge against Christian Mbilli in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

>Alvarez (63-3-2, 39 KOs), who has been earning eight-figure paydays for more than a decade, explained that money is no longer his principal motivation. At this stage in his career, "Canelo" continues to compete because he has a deep-rooted love for the sport.

>"[Boxing] makes me feel alive," Alvarez said. "I was born for this. I really enjoy it. It's hard to adapt yourself again [and again to different opponents], and the training camps are very hard, but I love that, and I enjoy it a lot.

>"I don't need anything. ... I did everything in boxing already, and I'm good [financially]. But I still love boxing. When I fight, I always break records, and that's the motivation for me. You need to do something in life. You need to keep your mind busy, motivated. Right now, my motivation is boxing."

Boxing may be Alvarez's motivation in life at present, but his aging body has a timer on how long that will remain the case. Alvarez required surgery on his elbow this past October and chose to forego his annual May fight so he could have longer to recover.

>It is the third surgery for Alvarez in seven years, after he required an operation in 2018 for his knee and a medical procedure for his left wrist in 2022. Alvarez claimed he was unable to train properly for his 2022 loss to Dmitry Bivol and has worn a knee brace during multiple fights.

>In recent years, the decline in Alvarez's performances has become more apparent. He has not scored an inside-the-distance win in almost five years, and his general output is shrinking by the fight. So it comes as little surprise that Alvarez has considered what life will look like for him after boxing.

>"Maybe four fights more," Alvarez reiterated of what he has left in his career. "I'm [still] on it. I'm focused until the end. When I retire, I'm going to still do exercise and boxing and this and that, but I have other things to do, and then I'm going to focus 100% on those things."

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>"It's not about money," he added. "... I've gotten a lot of paydays, but I still love boxing. I don't do it because I get a lot of big paydays. It's because I really still enjoy boxing. I love boxing. But there's nothing out there for me to prove, because I did everything. I accomplished pretty much everything in boxing."

>Alvarez acknowledges that he will miss the sweet science when he finally hangs up the gloves. He may remain in the sport in some capacity, but one future he doesn't envision for himself is in boxing promotion, where he'd be battling with Dana White's Zuffa Boxing and Eddie Hearn's Matchroom.

>"With everything happening with promoters right now and all the other stuff, I don't want to be involved in that kind of stuff," Alvarez said. "It's not really my goal to be the promoter of something, or fighting with all the promoters. I don't want to be involved in that."