Canelo Alvarez to meet William Scull May 3 in Saudi Arabia - ESPN

Canelo Alvarez, boxing's top star, will meet William Scull for the undisputed super middleweight championship May 3 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Turki Alalshikh announced Saturday.

Alalshikh, the chairman of Saudi Arabia's General Entertainment Authority, signed Alvarez to a four-fight Riyadh Season deal Thursday. The first fight of that deal — which will take place Sunday morning, May 4, to accommodate a prime-time U.S. broadcast Saturday night on Cinco de Mayo — will see Alvarez look to regain the IBF title that was stripped of him last year after he declined to face Scull.

Scull (23-0, 9 KOs) was his mandatory challenger at the time and went on to outpoint Vladimir Shiskin for the vacant IBF title in October.

Mexico's Alvarez, 34, holds the WBC, WBA and WBO titles at 168 pounds. With an expected win over Scull, in what amounts to a tune-up for a Sept. 13 showdown with Terence Crawford, that superfight will be contested for the undisputed championship.

Alvarez's new four-fight deal with Riyadh Season was a stunning development that reshaped the boxing landscape just hours after ESPN reported he was in the process of finalizing a deal to fight YouTube star Jake Paul on May 3 in Las Vegas.

«I just fight real fighters, no f---ing around with Canelo,» Alvarez said Friday in a Ring Magazine video.

Alvarez is coming off a dominant decision victory over Edgar Berlanga in September. Now, he turns his attention to Scull, an undefeated but relatively unknown challenger from Cuba who has quietly climbed the 168-pound ranks.

Scull, 31, holds a 23-0 record with 9 knockouts, though he has yet to face elite competition at the world level. Fighting out of Germany, Scull is a slick, awkward fighter who will be a massive underdog against