Boxing

ESPN Calls Out Canelo Alvarez With Pound-For-Pound Rankings Release

Canelo Alvarez's stock took a solid hit accordng to ESPN's most recent pound-for-pound rankings.
Grant Young|
Saul "Canelo" Alvarez during the game International Friendly on September 7, 2024.
Saul "Canelo" Alvarez during the game International Friendly on September 7, 2024. | IMAGO / Agencia-MexSport

Canelo Alvarez has received a lot of criticism for his May 3 fight against William Scull, which took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. While Canelo ended up winning the fight via unanimous decision, the fight's slow nature and Canelo's historically low volume across the 12 rounds have many suggesting that he was simply trying to avoid losing and didn't want to take any risks.

Oscar De La Hoya put Canelo on blast for this by saying, "Canelo... Come on. You're getting paid all this money to fight against the runner, who we all knew was gonna run... "But it's sad, it really is. When you're fighting for the money and not legacy, every young fighter follows that pattern, and it's not fair.

"The fans want to see good fights!" De La Hoya added.

Another reason why Canelo's performance isn't sitting well is that several other fighters who are considered at the top of the pound-for-pound rankings have fought relatively recently (including Naoya Inoue one day later), and all produced better performances than Canelo.

This seems to be the basis of ESPN dropping Canelo down a spot in their most recent pound-for-pound rankings, with him moving from No. 6 to No. 7 despite winning the fight against Scull. The only movement in the top 10 was Canelo switching places with Jesse "Bam" Rodriguez.

The top six fighters before Rodriguez are, in order, Oleksandr Usyk, Naoya Inoue, Terence Crawford, Dmitry Bivol, and then Artur Beterbiev.

The good news for Canelo is that if he can defeat Crawford in September, people will soon forget about this Scull stinker.

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Grant Young
GRANT YOUNG

Grant Young is a Staff Writer for On SI’s Boxing, New York Mets, Indiana Fever, and Women’s Fastbreak sites. Before joining SI in 2024, he wrote for various boxing and sports verticals such as FanBuzz and NY Fights. Young has a bachelor’s degree in marketing and a master’s degree in creative writing with an emphasis on sports nonfiction from the University of San Francisco, where he played five seasons of Division 1 baseball. He fought Muay Thai professionally in Thailand in 2023, loves a good essay, and is driven crazy trying to handle a pitpull puppy named Aura. Young lives in San Diego and was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area.