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

It’s been a while since the Boxing Writers Association of America conducted its bimonthly pound-for-pound top-10 rankings poll. Because the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the possibility of major fights taking place for months, the BWAA placed a pause on the rankings poll after April.

So, with boxing resuming on a somewhat abbreviated scale, the BWAA reinstituted the poll and Canelo Alvarez, the BWAA’s 2019 Fighter of the Year, reigns again atop the BWAA pound-for-pound top-10 rankings. This is the third-straight time Alvarez won the BWAA poll.

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, January 22, 2021, with the results posted later that month.

Alvarez, based on his brilliant November 2019 stoppage of Sergey Kovalev, snapped previous BWAA pound-for-pound king Vasiliy Lomachenko’s seven-poll win streak, by a point in the December 2019 poll in what was the tightest BWAA poll yet.

Alvarez has not relinquished the top spot.

Since the last poll was taken in April 2020, some seismic changes have taken place. For one, lightweight world champion Teofimo Lopez debuts at No. 5, after his sterling October victory over Lomachenko, who dropped from No. 2 to No. 7, two behind Lopez.

The shift enables Terence Crawford, Naoya Inoue and Errol Spence Jr., who were ranked No. 3-5, respectively, in the April poll, to each move up one slot.

With Lopez coming in at No. 5, Oleksandr Usyk, No. 5 in the April poll, slides to No. 6, with Manny Pacquiao, who was previously ranked No. 9, falling out of the rankings. With Lomachenko moving to No. 7, Gennadiy Golovkin, No. 7 in the previous poll, drops to No. 10, while heavyweight world champion Tyson Fury maintains his place at No. 8, junior bantamweight champ Juan Francisco Estrada moves up from No. 10 to No. 9.

1. Canelo Alvarez (172 points)

Middleweight

53-1-2 (36 KOs)

2. Terence Crawford (153)

Welterweight

37-0-0 (28 KOs)

3. Naoya Inoue (143)

Bantamweight

20-0-0 (17 KOs)

4. Errol Spence Jr. (122)

Welterweight

27-0-0 (21 KOs)

5. Teofimo Lopez (81)

Lightweight

16-0-0 (12 KOs)

6. Oleksandr Usyk (79)

Heavyweight

18-0-0 (13 KOs)

7. Vasiliy Lomachenko (52)

Lightweight

14-2-0 (10 KOs)

8. Tyson Fury (49)

Heavyweight

30-0-1 (21 KOs)

9. Juan Francisco Estrada (36)

Jr. Bantamweight

41-3-0 (28 KOs)

10. Gennadiy Golovkin (26)

Middleweight

40-1-1 (35 KOs)

Also receiving votes: Jermell Charlo (13), Josh Taylor (12), Gervonta Davis (8), Kosei Tanaka (8), Mikey Garcia (7), Manny Pacquiao (7), Artur Beterbiev (6), Roman Gonzalez (3), Anthony Joshua (3)