A diplomatic observer or generous-hearted soul might have described Saturday’s main event at The Venue in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as a tactical battle or a chess match, but that simply has no basis in fact.

Chess matches draw more blood.

Twelve rounds of glorified square dancing with William Scull left Saul “Canelo” Alvarez clearly agitated – to say nothing for the rest of us. But for his troubles, at least Alvarez was rewarded with a unanimous decision, reclaiming his status as undisputed super middleweight champion.

Scores were 115-113, 116-112, 119-109 for Alvarez, who, as has become his custom, fought and won again on Cinco de Mayo weekend.

But what was the point of celebrating the cultural holiday half a world away from his native Guadalajara, Mexico – or even his unofficial and professional second home of the United States. Was it to expose Alvarez to a new fan base? Legitimize Riyadh as the new nerve center of boxing? Consolidate the belts to build the kind of buzz for a fight that boxing hasn’t seen in years?

Three swings, three misses.

Months from now, fans will turn out in droves for a Canelo Alvarez-Terence Crawford matchup on Mexican Independence Day weekend – but it will have nothing to do with what viewers witnessed Saturday in Riyadh.

If anything, the victory over Scull was one of the worst performances of the second and third acts of Canelo’s long and decorated professional career. Alvarez, 63-2-2 (39 KOs), shares a portion of the blame for that after engaging his opponent half-heartedly, generally one punch at a time and never on anything but his own terms. Yet it was Scull himself – a 32-year-old escape artist from Cuba – as well as the dominos that fell to put him in position to do-si-do with Alvarez for 36 minutes of fight “action” that deserve far greater scorn from fans (and incredulous pay-per-view purchasers).

Even in his heyday, Alvarez was never built to chase after an opponent more interested in re-enacting an Usher choreography routine than engaging in a fight. But at 34, Canelo had no chance of looking good as long as Scull’s will and motor held out. It did, sadly, from the first bell to the last.

Both fighters pawed and patty-caked through the early rounds, with Alvarez sizing up his opponent (as is his custom) and Scull bouncing, swaying and taking zero risks. Canelo landed a right cross to the body and a left hook upstairs, and Scull got off one solid right hand – but to no consequence.

It was a bad match of styles, of course. Alvarez is slow afoot, while the slick Scull refuses to allow dangerous opponents to pin him down. Scull has a bit of pop when he chooses to call on it, but Canelo’s veteran defense sees him block, roll off or absorb nearly everything. In the third, Alvarez chipped away at the body – but found Scull too elusive for anything more than random single shots. In the fourth, Scull strafed Alvarez with a nifty right-hand counter while sliding off the ropes – but with too little power or angle on it to have a meaningful effect.

Scull finally opened up in the sixth – but only just so. And by then, he had already theoretically given away half the fight. That seems a poor strategy against an all-time great who has never been stopped in 66 pro fights. Scull leveraged a convincing jab fake to land a dazzling straight right – but it was almost the sum total of his offensive work to that point. Worse, Canelo got it back, chopping wood with one-off body shots throughout the round.

The kicker: Scull appeared to believe he had the fight well in hand. He tilted, mugged, pedaled, gyrated and, on his stool after six rounds, grinned toothily like the cat who ate the canary. In the DAZN broadcast booth, the analysts tried to make heads or tails of Scull’s mindset. 

Todd Grisham, stunned, said, “I think he thinks he’s winning these rounds.”

In reply, Sergio Mora said drily: “Ignorance is bliss.”

The action, such as it was, picked up a bit in the fight’s back half. Although never leading, Scull would follow a significant Alvarez body blow with a counter. When and if it landed, however, the damage was a fraction of anything Alvarez inflicted. During a lull in a fight full of them, Canelo unexpectedly uncoiled a left hook to Scull’s temple. For the rest of the round, he looked bored.

In the ninth, referee Kieran McCann – recognizing the moment, or perhaps mercifully draining the clock – gathered the fighters at center ring, placed a hand on the shoulder of each and delivered the scolding of a school marm: “There’s too much running around.” This only seemed to encourage the shenanigans. Scull began complaining about phantom low blows, prompting McCann to warn an increasingly nonplussed Alvarez. Canelo retaliated with several body shots, a left hand up top and a final right hand to the head at the bell.

By the final rounds, Alvarez seemed resigned to whatever fate came of the mess of a matchup, and Scull, if anything, only appeared emboldened by the fact that he was still upright. He continued to throw and run, at least on the rare occasions when he wasn’t just running. In the biggest break by far in his career – ham-handedly engineered by the sanctioning body that issued his belt – the 32-year-old Scull, 23-1 (9 KOs), ensured he would never receive another opportunity remotely like it.

Alvarez, meanwhile, won his sixth fight in a row and moved to 10-0 at super middleweight. He hasn’t registered a knockout since stopping Caleb Plant in 2021, and one wonders whether to attribute it to the size differential at his current weight (Scull was noticeably larger in the ring Saturday) or age, which has not only stolen some of Canelo’s mobility but also his punch output.

Perhaps we’ll learn more when Alvarez meets Crawford – both an older (37) and smaller opponent – in September. In the meantime, we can only hope the magnitude of the moment, in which two of boxing’s brightest lights are expected to come together, sets off more heat than Saturday’s DOA fight.

Jason Langendorf is the former Boxing Editor of ESPN.com, was a contributor to Ringside Seat and the Queensberry Rules, and has written about boxing for Vice, The Guardian, Chicago Sun-Times and other publications. A member of the Boxing Writers Association of America, he can be found at LinkedIn and followed on X and Bluesky.