Canelo Alvarez Surgery Recovery Pushes Return To Mid-2026

Canelo Alvarez will be inactive until the second quarter of 2026 due to elbow surgery. He fought with an injured elbow during his loss to Terence Crawford this month on September 13th.

Timeline for Canelo’s 2026 Return

According to ESPN, the Mexican star Canelo (63-3-2, 39 KOs) will recover for two months from the surgery, and then need an additional “12 to 15 weeks” before he can resume training. The surgery will be in San Diego, California.

So, instead of the former undisputed super middleweight champion Canelo fighting in February 2026 in his third fight of his four-fight contract with Turki Alalshikh’s Riyadh Season, he’ll need to wait from May to September.

Possible Opponents for Canelo’s Comeback

• Terence Crawford [rematch]
• Chris Eubank Jr.
• Hamzah Sheeraz
• Christian Mbilli

With the money that Turki can invest in marketing a fight between Canelo and one of these fighters, it could be a successful venture. There wouldn’t be a high degree of interest from the American market in watching Canelo fight Sheeraz, Eubank Jr., or Mbilli. If Turki invests gazillions into advertising, it would do well.

Placing Canelo’s fight on Netflix will likely result in a massive viewership. The UK fans would like to see Canelo fight Sheeraz or Eubank Jr., as they’re one of their own.

A rematch with the 38-year-old Crawford (42-0, 31 KOs) would be the best bet for Alvarez, as it would give him a chance to avenge his 12-round unanimous decision loss that he suffered against the Nebraska native at Allegiant Stadium.

Ideally, it would be better for fans to see Canelo fight someone else, like Mbilli, Lester Martinez, David Benavidez, or Osleys Iglesias. Fans would prefer to see Canelo fighting one of these all-action fighters rather than seeing Crawford again as his opponent.

Nation Vegas’ Take: Crawford Rematch Would Be a Money Grab

Having a rematch with Crawford take place would be like a money grab. Additionally, it wasn’t an exciting fight to watch. Crawford ran around the ring, boxing, rarely engaging until the championship rounds. For fans who enjoy chess matches between older fighters, they’d be happy with the fight. For the majority of people who demanded action, they were disappointed.

Terence’s style has never been particularly entertaining to watch, which is one of the contributing factors why his former promoters at Top Rank were never able to turn him into a star. From Nation Vegas’ perspective, the only entertaining I’d ever seen from Crawford was against Errol Spence.

Contrary to popular belief, Crawford wasn’t avoided by other fighters throughout his entire career. He got all the fights he needed at 135 and 140. He didn’t run into problems until he moved up to 147, and couldn’t get fights against these fighters:

• Manny Pacquiao
• Errol Spence
• Keith Thurman
• Danny Garcia
• Shawn Porter

Crawford eventually got fights against Spence and Porter. So, it wasn’t a big deal like many fans and certain members of the media played it out to be.

Written by Nation Vegas, Boxing Analyst, covering world title fights since 2013,