Canelo Álvarez is scheduled to fight Christian Mbilli in Riyadh on 31 October for Mbilli's WBC super middleweight title, his first fight since losing to Terence Crawford in September 2025. Mbilli is 29-0-1, and Álvarez is 36 with a record of 63 wins, 3 losses and 2 draws.1
Fourteen rankings place him among the all-time greats, the 2010s and 2020s, three weight divisions, Mexico's best athletes, the highest earners and the most overrated boxers. Each one lands on a different set of names, and the set changes his case.
Canelo's career reads like a guest list of Mayweather, Golovkin, Kovalev, Bivol and Crawford. Every ranking he is on has one of them standing next to him.
Canelo, Ali and Chávez: the 18 best boxers ever
This list of the 18 best boxers ever is where the title question gets asked, and Canelo Álvarez appears beside Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson, Joe Louis and Julio César Chávez.
His case is variety. He has won titles from light middleweight to light heavyweight and held the undisputed super middleweight crown twice.2
The résumé behind it has mixed results against the biggest names. He lost to Floyd Mayweather in 2013, drew with Gennady Golovkin in 2017 and beat him in 2018 and 2022.
Canelo vs Mayweather: the 2013 loss behind every pound-for-pound list
The pound-for-pound list for the 21st century is built on who beat whom. Floyd Mayweather retired in 2017 with a record of 50-0 and titles in five weight classes.3
Canelo was 23 when Mayweather beat him by majority decision on 14 September 2013, the first loss on his record.2 Every later comparison starts from that night, and it sets the bar he has been measured against for a decade.
Manny Pacquiao, Terence Crawford, Oleksandr Usyk, Naoya Inoue and Juan Manuel Márquez share the list. Where a reader puts Canelo among them depends on how much weight the 2025 loss to Crawford carries.
Four divisions to Pacquiao's eight: the multi-division list
Manny Pacquiao is the only eight-division world champion in boxing history.4 The multi-division list counts ladders climbed, and Canelo's four sit beside Mayweather's five and Pacquiao's eight.
His climb is unusual for where it went. He won the WBO light heavyweight title by knocking out Sergey Kovalev in November 2019, then returned to super middleweight.
Juan Manuel Márquez and Érik Morales, who both fought Pacquiao, are on the same list.
Usyk and Crawford: the club of undisputed champions
Undisputed means holding all four major belts at once, and few fighters of the four-belt era can say they did.
Canelo became the first undisputed super middleweight champion by stopping Caleb Plant in the 11th round on 6 November 2021. He completed a second reign by beating William Scull for the IBF belt in May 2025.2
Four months later Terence Crawford took the belts from him, becoming the first male boxer to hold three unified division titles.5
Oleksandr Usyk, undisputed at cruiserweight and at heavyweight, is on the same list, along with Naoya Inoue, Lennox Lewis, Bernard Hopkins and Mike Tyson.
Crawford, Bivol and Plant: the 2020s ledger
The 2020s list is the one where Canelo's recent record counts most, and it opens with the fight that defines it.
On 13 September 2025, Terence Crawford beat Canelo by unanimous decision at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, with two judges scoring it 115-113 and the third 116-112. The announced crowd of 70,482 was a Las Vegas boxing record, and the fight streamed on Netflix.52
The decade also gave him wins over Plant, Golovkin, Jaime Munguía and Edgar Berlanga, and a loss to Dmitry Bivol in 2022.
Usyk, Inoue, Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua are the other names on it. A ranking of this decade has to weigh the people Canelo beat against the two who beat him.
Golovkin and Mayweather: the 2010s, measured by opponents
Gennadiy Golovkin and Canelo met twice in the 2010s. The first fight, in September 2017, was scored a split draw, and Canelo won the 2018 rematch by majority decision.2
Mayweather's win over him in 2013 falls in the same decade, and Canelo spent all of it in his twenties.
Mayweather, Pacquiao, Andre Ward, Crawford and Vasiliy Lomachenko share the list, so the decade reads as a ranking of fighters who were already established when he arrived.
Carl Froch and 168 pounds: the super middleweight crown
Super middleweight is Canelo's division. He won the WBA title at 168 pounds by stopping Rocky Fielding in December 2018 and added the WBC and Ring titles by beating Callum Smith in December 2020.2
The list of the 18 greatest super middleweights runs from Joe Calzaghe and Roy Jones Jr. to Carl Froch and Andre Ward, and it includes Terence Crawford, the man who took Canelo's belts.
Hagler's division: Canelo at middleweight
Canelo's middleweight run is short and busy. He knocked out Amir Khan in the sixth round on 7 May 2016, fought Golovkin in 2017 and 2018, and beat Daniel Jacobs in May 2019 to add the IBF title.2
Marvin Hagler, undisputed middleweight champion from 1980 to 1987, anchors the list, with Sugar Ray Robinson, Carlos Monzón, Bernard Hopkins and Golovkin.
Kovalev and Bivol: two fights at light heavyweight
Canelo's light heavyweight career is two fights long and has one result of each kind.
He won the WBO title by knocking out Sergey Kovalev in the 11th round at the MGM Grand on 2 November 2019, then lost to Dmitry Bivol in May 2022 on three scorecards of 115-113.2
Two fights is a small footprint next to Archie Moore, who held the title for nearly a decade, or Dariusz Michalczewski, who held the WBO belt for nine years. Canelo's entry rests on a single night against Kovalev.
Julio César Chávez and the Mexican boxing tradition
The Mexican list is the one where Canelo's competition is domestic. Julio César Chávez won world titles in three weight divisions and fought from 1980 to 2005, ending with 107 wins, 6 losses and 2 draws.6
In 1993 Chávez fought Greg Haugen at Estadio Azteca in front of more than 130,000 people, one of the largest crowds ever for a boxing match.
Érik Morales, Marco Antonio Barrera and Juan Manuel Márquez, rivals who also fought Pacquiao, are on the list. Canelo, from Guadalajara, brings scale: he beat Jaime Munguía of Tijuana in May 2024 in a Las Vegas fight between two Mexicans.
Valenzuela, Chávez and Ochoa: Mexico's best athletes
The athletes list takes Canelo out of the ring and into baseball, football, golf and motor racing.
Fernando Valenzuela took both the Cy Young Award and National League Rookie of the Year in 1981, the first player to do both, and the Dodgers won the World Series that October.7
Chávez and Juan Manuel Márquez are the other boxers. Hugo Sánchez and Javier Hernández carry football, Lorena Ochoa golf, Sergio Pérez and Pedro Rodríguez racing, and Paola Espinosa diving.
Canelo's first professional fight was in October 2005, and he is still headlining in 2026.
Canelo vs Ronaldo: the highest earners in sport
Sportico's list of the highest-paid athletes of 2025 put Canelo Álvarez second, with estimated earnings of $137 million, behind Cristiano Ronaldo at $260 million.8
The Ring reported that $125 million of Canelo's total came from two fights, William Scull in May and Terence Crawford in September, and $12 million from endorsements. Crawford, who beat him, ranked 21st on the same list at $66 million.
The 21st-century earnings list also holds Pacquiao, Mayweather, Tiger Woods and Conor McGregor. It shows how much of boxing's money arrives on a single night.
Mike Tyson and the overrated list: the Scull fight
The overrated list is where Canelo's case is the weakest, and the unflattering sections are why the article has one.
His fight against William Scull in Riyadh on 3 May 2025 set a CompuBox record for the fewest punches in a 12-round fight: 445 in total, 152 of them from Canelo. He won on all three scorecards.2
Two losses in the 2020s, to Bivol and Crawford, are the other charge against his reputation.
Mike Tyson, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao are on the same list, so being there says more about reputation than record.
Jannik Sinner and the cinnamon nickname
Canelo is Spanish for cinnamon, a nickname for his red hair, and it puts him on the list of the 26 best redhead athletes next to Jannik Sinner, Rod Laver, Paul Scholes and Kevin De Bruyne.
The field runs from tennis to the NBA, with Bill Walton on it too, and hair colour is the only thing the athletes share.
Mbilli is the next name on the list
A career this tied to opponents can only be ranked through them. Mayweather settles one list, Golovkin another, Kovalev and Bivol two more, and Crawford the most recent. If the 31 October date holds, Christian Mbilli, who has never lost, adds a name to the set, and the cases for and against Canelo change again.
Rankings like these work by pairwise comparison, two fighters at a time. Pick the boxer you would add to the list and see how he fares against the ones here.
More rankings, more angles
- Mayweather vs Pacquiao: Who Is the Better Boxer? 16 Lists — the man who beat Canelo in 2013 and the rival he met once
- Where Does Mike Tyson Rank All Time? 16 Lists Weigh In — ten of his sixteen rankings sit outside boxing
- Greatest Boxer of All Time? Muhammad Ali on 14 Lists — boxer, draft resister, Olympic torchbearer
Sources
- beIN SPORTS — Canelo Álvarez vs Christian Mbilli, 31 October 2026, Riyadh, and both fighters' records: beinsports.com (checked 2026-10-22)
- Wikipedia — Canelo Álvarez, professional record, titles and fight-by-fight results, including the Mayweather, Golovkin, Kovalev, Plant, Bivol, Scull and Crawford fights and the CompuBox record: en.wikipedia.org (checked 2026-10-22)
- Wikipedia — Floyd Mayweather Jr., 50-0 record, retirement in 2017 and titles in five weight classes: en.wikipedia.org (checked 2026-10-22)
- Wikipedia — Manny Pacquiao, the only eight-division world champion: en.wikipedia.org (checked 2026-10-22)
- theScore — Crawford beats Canelo to become super middleweight champion, 13 September 2025, scorecards and attendance: thescore.com (checked 2026-10-22)
- Wikipedia — Julio César Chávez, record, three weight divisions and the 1993 Estadio Azteca fight: en.wikipedia.org (checked 2026-10-22)
- Wikipedia — Fernando Valenzuela, 1981 Cy Young Award and Rookie of the Year: en.wikipedia.org (checked 2026-10-22)
- The Ring — Canelo Álvarez named world's second highest-paid athlete after earning $137M in 2025, from Sportico's list: ringmagazine.com (checked 2026-10-22)