Vladimir Shishkin wasn’t the least bit surprised when William Scull refused to engage with Canelo Alvarez throughout their super middleweight title fight May 3 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Scull wasn’t the least bit aggressive against Shishkin, either, in an IBF 168-pound championship match the reluctant Cuban controversially won by unanimous decision on October 19 in Berlin. Scull resides and trains there.

The competitive nature of Alvarez versus Scull did surprise Shishkin, who expected Alvarez to knock out Scull to regain his IBF belt. Scull didn’t truly try to win their bout, but Shishkin agreed with the two judges who respectively scored four and five rounds for him.

“I think it was so close, honestly,” Shishkin told The Ring in advance of his fight with another Cuban contender, Osleys Iglesias, on Thursday night at Casino de Montreal. “Scull could’ve won the fight, but he just moved around. If he punched a little bit more, he could’ve won. He just ran away.”

Mexico’s Alvarez didn’t do much to cut off the ring, either, which afforded Scull the room and time he needed to fight defensively off his back foot and last all 12 rounds.

Their DAZN Pay-Per-View main event lacked action to the disturbing degree that it established a CompuBox record for the least combined punches attempted during a 12-round bout (445). CompuBox credited Alvarez for throwing a mere 152 punches as well, the second fewest thrown by one boxer in a 12-round match during the company’s 40-year history.

“There was nothing to watch,” Shishkin said. “[Scull is] not the kind of fighter who wants to hurt somebody. He just has amateur skills. I knew it would happen like this, but I thought Canelo was smarter and could find a way to knock him out. But he didn’t.”

Alvarez (63-2-2, 39 KOs) won by scores of 119-109, 116-112 and 115-113, though his victory over Scull (23-1, 9 KOs) created more questions about his upcoming showdown with Terence Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) than it provided answers.

It did, however, make Alvarez a two-time undisputed super middleweight champion. The Guadalajara native will defend his titles against Crawford on September 13, when Netflix will stream their fight worldwide from Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

Russia’s Shishkin (16-1, 10 KOs), who is ranked No. 2 by the IBF, will square off against Iglesias (13-0, 12 KOs), a powerful southpaw who is rated third by the IBF, to become the New Jersey-based sanctioning organization’s mandatory challenger for the Alvarez-Crawford winner. The No. 1 spot in the IBF’s super middleweight rankings is unoccupied.

Shishkin’s handlers filed a protest with the Association of German Professional Boxers following his debatable defeat to Scull. The outcome of their bout wasn’t changed, but the IBF kept Shishkin in the No. 2 position in its rankings and eventually ordered this elimination match with Iglesias.

Shishkin, 34, hasn’t fought in the 10½ months since Scull beat him.

“It was a good lesson for me,” Shishkin said. “It is what it is. It was whatever for me. I just keep going my way.”