Canelo Alvarez Continues As The BWAA’s Pound-For-Pound King

Not that Canelo Alvarez needs anymore validation as the world’s No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter entering his super middleweight WBC/WBA/WBO title defense this weekend against Billy Joe Saunders, but for the fifth-straight time he rules atop the Boxing Writers Association of America’s top-10 bimonthly pound-for-pound poll.

Alvarez, the BWAA’s 2019 Fighter of the Year, was on every ballot and received every first-place place vote but two. He has not relinquished the BWAA’s top spot since December 2019, when he snapped previous BWAA pound-for-pound king Vasiliy Lomachenko’s seven-poll win streak by a point in the tightest BWAA poll yet.

The BWAA’s pound-for-pound polls are selected by BWAA members from respected news outlets and is broken down based on a descending points system, with a first-place vote receiving 10 points, a second-place vote receiving nine points and so on. Ties go to the fighter with the most votes.

The BWAA has been listing on a bimonthly basis its top-10 pound-for-pound fighters in the world. All BWAA members, full and auxiliary, can send their top-10 pound-for-pound votes in for each even month to JSantoliquitoBWAA@yahoo.com.

The next deadline will be Friday, June 25, 2021, with the results posted later that month.

The top five remain the same since the last BWAA poll was taken in February 2021, with Alvarez at No. 1 followed by Terence Crawford, Naoya Inoue, Errol Spence Jr., and lightweight world champion and BWAA 2020 Fighter of the Year Teofimo Lopez in that order. All five appeared on every ballot.

The big shakeup comes at No. 6, where heavyweight world champion Tyson Fury moves up from No. 7, switching with Oleksandr Usyk, who drops from No. 6 to No. 7. Fury and Lomachenko appeared on every ballot but three, and Usyk appeared on every ballot but two.

Lomachenko remains at No. 8, while junior bantamweight champ Juan Francisco Estrada re-enters the poll at No. 9, moving down previous No. 9 Gennadiy Golovkin to No. 10 and moving out future Hall of Famer Manny Pacquiao, who was previously at No. 10.

1. Canelo Alvarez (138 points)

Super Middleweight

55-1-2 (37 KOs)

2. Terence Crawford: (130)

Welterweight

37-0-0 (28 KOs)

3. Naoya Inoue (112)

Bantamweight

20-0-0 (17 KOs)

4. Errol Spence Jr. (107)

Welterweight

27-0-0 (21 KOs)

5. Teofimo Lopez (90)

Lightweight

16-0-0 (12 KOs)

6. Tyson Fury (63)

Heavyweight

30-0-1 (21 KOs)

7. Oleksandr Usyk (60)

Heavyweight

18-0-0 (13 KOs)

8. Vasiliy Lomachenko (51)

Lightweight

14-2-0 (10 KOs)

9. Juan Francisco Estrada (41)

Junior Bantamweight

42-3-0 (28 KOS)

10. Gennadiy Golovkin (27)

Middleweight

40-1-1 (35 KOs)

Also receiving votes: Artur Beterbiev (8), Kazuto Ioka (6), Jermell Charlo (5), Jermall Charlo (4), Josh Taylor (4), Oscar Valdez (4), Emanuel Navarrete (3), Roman Gonzalez (2), Gervonta Davis (1), Luis Nery (1).