By Sean Jones: Canelo Alvarez appears bitter about his drop from the #1 spot in Ring Magazine’s pound-for-pound list after his defeat against Dmitry Bivol on May 7th. Alvarez still thinks he’s the best despite his one-sided schooling by Bivol.
The way WBA light heavyweight champion Bivol (20-0, 11 KOs) outboxed Canelo (57-2-2, 39 KOs) using mainly his technical game rather than power likely played a large part in Ring Magazine dropping the Mexican star to the #6 spot in their pound-for-pound list.
Canelo didn’t display the type of boxing skills that one would expect to see from a #1 pound-for-pound fighter or even a top #5.
What we saw from Canelo in his performance against Bivol was a fighter that was utterly deficient in these areas:
- Ring IQ
- Conditioning
- Jabs
- Mobility
- Combination punching
Ring Magazine could have dropped Canelo lower than the #6 spot in their rankings because they still have him rated above his conqueror Bivol, Vasyl Lomachenko, Josh Taylor, and Jermell Charlo.
If you’ve watched the highly technical Lomachenko fight, there’s no way that you can rate Canelo above him in terms of talent & skills.
Canelo’s game is simplistic, involving him plodding forward behind a high guard and winding up with single power shots. He doesn’t throw combinations and has a low work rate.
“Tell me another fighter who is going up and down in weight, wanting to achieve different things,” said Canelo Alvarez to DAZN Boxing about his drop from #1 to #6 in pound-for-pound rankings.
“I risk everything to keep making history when I don’t need to. So personally, I still feel I’m the best in the world,” said Canelo.
The problem is that when Canelo has climbed up in weight in the last four years, he’s been strategic, fighting paper champions and flowed old guys. Canelo has gone up in weight, but he’s not fought the best.
Canelo’s wins in the last four years:
- Billy Joe Saunders
- Callum Smith
- Caleb Plant
- Avni Yildirim
- Rocky Fielding
- Daniel Jacobs
- Sergey Kovalev
Those were carefully selected opponents for Canelo, all of them, and it’s evident that he didn’t fight the best.
Canelo should have fought David Benavidez, David Morrell Jr, Demetrius Andrade, and Artur Beterbiev in the last four years to prove he was the best.
The fact that Canelo didn’t fight those talented fighters is why many boxing fans view him as an opportunist, a guy that carefully chooses his opposition to ensure he wins every time.
“The truth is that I don’t know how they handle that kind of thing,” Alvarez said about the pound-for-pound ranking system.
“I’m in a position where I don’t have to risk anything, and I still do it, and nobody does that when they are in a position like the one I’m in,” said Canelo.
If Canelo were fighting the best in each weight class, he would deserve the #1 spot.
Updated Ring Magazine pound-for-pound list
1. Oleksandr Usyk
2. Terence Crawford
3. Naoya Inoue
4. Errol Spence Jr.
5. Juan Francisco Estrada
6. Canelo Alvarez
7. Vasyl Lomachenko
8. Dmitry Bivol
9. Josh Taylor
10. Jermell Charlo
