Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez has maintained his position at the top of Boxing Social’s pound for pound charts, but seen his advantage cut by Oleksandr Usyk, who rises four places to second since June.
The Mexican mega-star was the number one pick for seven of our nine-person panel. In our previous poll in June, Usyk had ranked sixth, but his victory against Anthony Joshua for the WBA Super, IBF and WBO heavyweight titles saw him placed second by seven judges and top by the other two. Canelo – of course – recently unified all four super-middleweight titles against Caleb Plant.
Naoya Inoue – who topped our inaugural ratings in November 2020 – has fallen back to fourth place, behind Usyk and Terence Crawford, whose recent victory against highly rated 147lbs rival Shawn Porter resonated well with our panel. Undisputed 140lbs king Josh Taylor fell one place to fifth due to Usyk’s rise.
Teofimo Lopez, previously ranked fifth, falls out of the top ten altogether after his defeat against George Kambosos Jr. The Aussie found his way into five judges’ top ten lists and is now ranked ninth.
Juan Francisco Estrada was placed in the top ten by eight of our nine judges and is now ranked sixth, followed by Errol Spence, Tyson Fury and the aforementioned Kambosos.
Fury is a newcomer to the top ten, alongside Kazuto Ioka, while Jermell Charlo and Vasiliy Lomachenko have lost their previous top ten positions.
Boxing Social Pound-for-pound Top 10 (December 2021):
1. Canelo Alvarez 88 points
2. Oleksandr Usyk 83 points
3. Terence Crawford 68 points
4. Naoya Inoue 66 points
5. Josh Taylor 50 points
6. Juan Francisco Estrada 37 points
7. Errol Spence Jr 29 points
8. Tyson Fury 16 points
9. George Kambosos Jr 14 points
10. Kazuto Ioka 8 points
Others receiving votes: Oscar Valdez (5 points), Gervonta Davis (5 points), Vasiliy Lomachenko (5 points), Teofimo Lopez (4 points), Roman Gonzalez (4 points), Shakur Stevenson (4 points), Gennadiy Golovkin (2 points), Stephen Fulton (2 points), Jermell Charlo (2 points), Artur Beterbiev (2 points), Jermall Charlo (1 points)
The voting panel for the Boxing Social Pound-for-pound rankings are: Graham Houston, Rob Tebbutt, Mark Butcher, Luke G. Williams, Craig Scott, John Angus MacDonald, Shaun Brown, Garry White, Matt Bevan.
Each panellist ranked their Top 10 in order, with the boxer placed first receiving ten points, second nine points, third eight points and so on. Boxers were then ranked by the overall number of points accrued. If scores are equal then the boxer with the highest individual rating from a judge is ranked higher. If boxers are still equal they are then ranked equal. If there is a tie for first place then the boxer with the most first-place votes is given preference. If boxers are still equal they are then ranked equal.