Let’s get a couple of things straight about pound-for-pound rankings: They’re all relative to who you ask and personal preferences factor in.
For example, if you’re stuck debating Terence Crawford and Vasiliy Lomachenko for your top spot and you recognize the former Top Rank boxer’s mean streak as a way to distinguish between their scintillating boxing skills, you might give the slight nod to “Bud” over Loma. It could be that simple.
Polling a dozen people for their P4P rankings is as good as asking people for their top 10 emcees or the best movies of all time. You ask 12 people and you’re likely to get some common names, but a different order and thus 12 unique lists, with people evoking all kinds of criteria for why they ranked one boxer over another.
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But even by those subjective guidelines, boxing fans and pundits alike should agree that if Canelo Alvarez handles Daniel Jacobs convincingly at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Saturday night, live and exclusively on DAZN, then he should be given the throne to boxing’s most fictitious, yet incessant rankings of them all.
That’s right, Canelo as the undisputed pound-for-pound king over Crawford and Lomachenko. Over Errol Spence Jr. Over Oleksandr Usyk.
And here’s why: the competition each has faced.
Before we even delve into the competition, let's state that the five aforementioned boxers are world titleholders in their prime. Usyk was even the undisputed ruler of the cruiserweight division, before relinquishing the WBA title in late March so that he could move up to heavyweight.
Three of the five boxers are undefeated: Crawford (35-0, 26 KOs), Spence (25-0, 21 KOs) and Usyk (16-0, 12 KOs).
Alvarez (51-1-2) and Lomachenko (13-1, 10 KOs) tout one loss each.
MORE: Remember when Daniel Jacobs — not Canelo — was Golden Child of Golden Boy?
When discussing P4P best, fans and media alike often tend to give more credence to boxers lighter in weight, as if it were more difficult for Lomachenko to go from featherweight to super featherweight to lightweight or Crawford to climb from lightweight to super lightweight to welterweight than it was for Canelo to segue from junior middleweight to middleweight to super middleweight.
Now, even though Canelo moving up to super middleweight and crushing Rocky Fielding via a third-round TKO to become a three-time world champion last December was seemingly nothing more than a one-off (he’s back down to 160 pounds for his clash against Jacobs), Alvarez, Crawford and Lomachenko are all three-time world champions.
So, where’s the push? The competition, the caliber of opponents each has faced.
You could take the biggest-name opponents that Crawford and Lomachenko have faced, respectively, combine them and they’d still pale in comparison to Shane Mosley, Austin Trout, Floyd Mayweather Jr. (Alvarez’s only loss) and two wars with Gennady Golovkin that Canelo battled. That, and he has a dangerous and extremely capable Jacobs yearning to prove that he’s the best middleweight in the world at Alvarez’s expense come Saturday night.
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That’s all the more reason why Canelo defeating Jacobs convincingly, emphatically and controversy-free should give him the undeniable top spot as boxing’s pound-for-pound best.
Of course, Crawford and Top Rank being able to cross the street and face Premier Boxing Champions’ welterweights such as Spence, Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter, Manny Pacquiao and Danny Garcia could change that. But who knows how long some of those fights will take to come to fruition?
Until then, a big win should spell a seat on the pound-for-pound throne for Canelo.
