Canelo Alvarez experienced one of the most stressful fight weeks imaginable in December 2018.

The Mexican superstar stunningly revealed during a wide-ranging interview with Graham Bensinger that one of his brothers was kidnapped the Monday before he defeated England’s Rocky Fielding at Madison Square Garden in New York. Alvarez, who has seven siblings, didn’t identify which of his six brothers was abducted.

The four-division champion informed Bensinger that his brother was returned unharmed after Alvarez negotiated with the kidnappers through an intermediary. Alvarez also said he didn’t call police because he thinks authorities in Mexico might’ve been involved in the abduction.

According to Alvarez’s timeline, his brother returned to his family before Alvarez floored Fielding four times and stopped him in the third round of their fight for Fielding’s WBA world super middleweight title. Alvarez didn’t discuss details of the agreement he made with his brother’s abductors.

“Over the phone, I negotiated everything for his release,” Alvarez told Bensinger during an interview that debuted on Bensinger’s YouTube channel Wednesday. “For three days, I negotiated with those a**holes, so they would let him go. Three days. And after I negotiated, I was still thinking, imagine if this had been my daughter, my mother, my father. For me, it would’ve been even more difficult.

“And on top of that, I had to fight on Saturday and a thousand interviews and everything, and no one knew anything. And that’s what I’m getting at, everybody thinks, wow, you know, they see me up there and they said, ‘Wow! It’s very easy.’ But nothing is easy in this life. Everything is difficult.”

That tense situation was made even more difficult because the Guadalajara native felt like he couldn’t turn to the police for help.

“It’s even harder in Mexico, because maybe they’re involved in that situation,” Alvarez said. “I think so. When you hear, ‘Hey, my brother is kidnapped,’ you’re going crazy. You’re going crazy in that moment. But I said, ‘OK, I wanna have a resolution for this situation.’ And at some point, all my mind is on the fight.”

The 30-year-old Alvarez acknowledged that he would like to move his family to the United States. He said it’s complicated, however, because many of his family members don’t want to leave their homeland.

Alvarez (55-1-2, 37 KOs) trained in San Diego for his upcoming super middleweight title unification fight against Billy Joe Saunders (30-0, 14 KOs). The favored Alvarez and England’s Saunders will meet May 8 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, for Alvarez’s WBA and WBC and Saunders’ WBO 168-pound championships.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.