Written By Jordan Rosas
On Saturday night, boxing’s pound-for-pound king, Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez knocked out Caleb Plant to become the undisputed super middleweight world champion. The victory culminated one of the single most impressive years from any athlete, in any sport.
Between December 19, 2020 and November 6, 2021, Canelo defeated 3 different undefeated super middleweight world champions to unify all of the belts in the division for the first time ever.
(Photo via CNNEspanol)
Following a successful run at middleweight, Canelo stepped up two divisions to light heavyweight, knocking out Sergei Kovalev for the WBO title. Kovalev entered the fight with a record of 34-3-1 and 29 KOs. The win over the Russian made Álvarez a 4-weight world champion.
Then the pandemic happened, halting his progress.
Following the shutdown, Canelo vacated his light heavyweight title. He moved down to super middleweight to challenge undefeated champion Callum Smith (then 27-0, 19 KOs). Smith held the WBA (Super) and Ring titles. The victory also earned Canelo the vacant WBC belt.
Two months later, he defeated his mandatory challenger, Avni Yildirim, who entered the ring at 21-2, with 12 KOs. He never even saw round 4.
Up next for Álvarez on May 8, 2021 was another undefeated champion – Billy Joe Saunders. Saunders was 30-0, 14 KOs, and held the WBO belt at the time. His unconventional style took Canelo time to adjust to, but in the eighth round, he connected on an uppercut that shattered the Brit’s orbital bone, leading to Saunders surrender.
(Roger Steinman / Associated Press)
The final piece missing from Canelo’s collection of super middleweight titles was the IBF title. Once again, the reigning champion was undefeated. At 21-0, with 12 KOs, Caleb “Sweet Hands” Plant was the last man standing between Canelo and undisputed status.
The victory made Canelo the first ever hispanic undisputed world champion, and just the sixth man ever in the four belt era.
The six men to become undisputed champions are as follows:
Bernard Hopkins (55-8-2, 32 KOs): September 18, 2004 (Middleweight) USA
Jermain Taylor (33-4-1, 20 KOs): July 16, 2005 (Middleweight) USA
Terence Crawford (37-0, 28 KOs): August 19, 2017 (Light Welterweight) USA
Oleksandr Usyk (19-0, 13 KOs): July 21, 2018 (Cruiserweight) Ukraine
Josh Taylor (18-0, 13 KOs): May 22, 2021 (Light Welterweight) UK
Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez (57-1-2, 39 KOs): November 6, 2021 (Super Middleweight) Mexico
The two Middleweights have both retired, while Crawford and Usyk have since vacated their titles and won belts in a higher weight class. That leaves Josh Taylor and Canelo as the only remaining, current undisputed world champions in men’s boxing.
LeBron, Pelé, Gretzky, Ali. Certain elite athletes become universally recognizable by a single name. 20 years ago, “Canelo” was simply the Spanish word for cinnamon. Now, Canelo joins Jordan, Brady, and DiMaggio on the list of GOATS.
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