Canelo Alvarez Is The BWAA’s New Pound-For-Pound King
Canelo Alvarez broke the seven-poll streak of Vasiliy Lomachenko as the BWAA’s pound-for-pound king in the most recent December 2019 poll. In the tightest BWAA pound-for-pound poll yet, Alvarez beat out Lomachenko by a point, based on his brilliant November stoppage of Sergey Kovalev, while bumping down Terence Crawford, who held the No. 2 position behind Lomachenko for over a year.
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 Boxing Writers Association of America has been listing on a bi-monthly 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 Monday, Feb. 17, 2020, with the results posted later that month.
The response to the poll continues to be strong.
Canelo and Lomachenko received an equal amount of first-place votes (9), but the difference came in some pollsters dropping Lomachenko to No. 3, while Canelo didn’t receive a vote lower than No. 2. Crawford and IBF bantamweight champ Naoya Inoue received the other first-place votes.
Besides Alvarez stepping to the top spot, Errol Spence Jr. switched from five to four with Inoue, who was left off of one ballot. Oleksandr Usyk, Gennadiy Golovkin, Juan Francisco Estrada and Manny Pacquiao all stay respectively the same from six through nine, while debuting at No. 10 is WBC heavyweight champ Deontay Wilder.
1. Canelo Alvarez (137 points)
Middleweight
53-1-2 (36 KOs)
2. Vasiliy Lomachenko (136)
Lightweight
14-1-0 (10 KOs)
3. Terence Crawford (130)
Welterweight
36-0-0 (27 KOs)
4. Errol Spence Jr. (93)
Welterweight
26-0-0 (21 KOs)
5. Naoya Inoue (85)
Bantamweight
19-0-0 (16 KOs)
6. Oleksandr Usyk (74)
Heavyweight
17-0-0 (13 KOs)
7. Gennadiy Golovkin (55)
Middleweight
40-1-1 (35 KOs)
8. Juan Francisco Estrada (34)
Jr. Bantamweight
40-3-0 (27 KOS)
9. Manny Pacquiao (32)
Welterweight
62-7-2 (39 KOS)
10. Deontay Wilder (20)
Heavyweight
42-0-1 (41 KOs)
Also receiving votes: Artur Beterbiev (15 points), Mikey Garcia (10), Leo Santa Cruz (10), Miguel Berchelt (7), Jaime Munguia (4), Tyson Fury (4), David Benavidez (3), Josh Taylor (3), Srisaket Sor Rungvisai (3), Mairis Briedis (2), Callum Smith (1), Shawn Porter (1)
