Ranking Canelo Alvarez's 10 Best Fights
It seems only yesterday that a fresh-faced Canelo Alvarez was heading into Labor Day weekend in the late stages of preparation for what turned into a pay-per-view blockbuster against Floyd Mayweather Jr. at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
In reality, it was 12 years ago.
But whaddya know? That cinnamon-haired kid, now 35, is still at it.
Alvarez is once again heading toward the holiday in the throes of a pre-pay-per-view training camp, getting set this time to go opposite fellow four-weight champion Terence Crawford just two miles down the road at Allegiant Stadium.
It's the most anticipated fight of the year, and the buzz put the B/R combat team in the mood to look at the Mexican star's body of work and compile a list of his 10 best fights. The quality of the performance and significance of the event were primary factors considered while whittling down his 63 wins since his 2005 debut.
Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought in the app comments.
10. Canelo Alvarez vs. James Kirkland - May 9, 2015
1 of 10
We'll concede that an in-between titles Alvarez was a huge favorite to beat the once-beaten but quite menacing Kirkland, who arrived at Minute Maid Park in Houston having stopped 28 of his victims—22 of them in three rounds or less.
So it's no surprise that he did. But sometimes, it's all about the visceral.
The sweeping right hand that Alvarez landed on Kirkland's chin while he simultaneously eluded his foe's desperate left earned a well-deserved KO of the Year award from ESPN and set the winner up for a middleweight title shot six months later.
9. Canelo Alvarez vs. Austin Trout - April 20, 2013
2 of 10
Alvarez has participated in more big fights—pay-per-view spectaculars, unification bouts, challenges for undisputed status—than nearly anyone of his generation.
But it had to start somewhere.
And that was two years before Kirkland, when he visited the Alamodome in San Antonio to engage in his first belt vs. belt scrap, defending his WBC title at 154 pounds while wresting the WBA's "regular" title from an unbeaten Austin Trout.
The 12-round win came by clear unanimous decision (official scores were 118-109, 116-111 and 115-112) and cleared the way for the then-22-year-old's ambitious bid to defeat Mayweather five months later in Las Vegas.
8. Canelo Alvarez vs. Jaime Munguia - May 4, 2024
3 of 10
A decade ago, Alvarez was the hungry young lion. Now, he's the quarry.
But a Cinco de Mayo weekend trip to the Nevada desert in 2024 proved he wasn't ready to cede the throne just yet, ending in a unanimous 12-round decision of the previously unbeaten Munguia, who'd arrived with 34 KOs in 43 straight wins.
The 27-year-old Munguia was trained for the bout by Hall of Famer Freddie Roach, but he was knocked down for the first time in his career in the fourth round and outclassed by Alvarez for the balance of the fight on the way to a decision in which the winner won by counts of 115-113, 117-110 and 116-111.
It was both the third straight outing in which Alvarez scored a knockdown and his most impressive performance in four fights since a loss to Dmitry Bivol in 2022.
7. Canelo Alvarez vs. Caleb Plant - November 6, 2021
4 of 10
Alvarez has scored KOs in more than half of his 63 wins.
Which may make it hard to believe that it's been nearly four years since his most recent one, an 11th-round stoppage of another previously unbeaten fighter in Plant that allowed him to complete his four-belt quest at 168 pounds.
The two men displayed enmity for one another through the fight's build-up, including a shoving match at a press conference. The vibes carried over to the ring, where, after the fleet-footed Plant eluded danger for the first few rounds, Alvarez seemed to take particular pressure in chopping his man down the rest of the way.
Plant was dropped in the 10th before a barrage of punches in the 11th forced the hand of referee Russell Mora at 1:05.
6. Canelo Alvarez vs. Amir Khan - May 7, 2016
5 of 10
Yeah, we'll say it again. We're suckers for highlight-reel KOs.
Alvarez scored another in his first WBC middleweight title defense when he dispatched an ambitious but outgunned Amir Khan, who was making the bid despite never having weighed more than 147 pounds in any of his previous 34 fights.
The Englishman was quick on his feet and quicker with his hands through five rounds, but was buzzed by a left early in the sixth and dumped with an overhand right that brought an immediate response from ringside medical personnel.
It was a second straight superlative finish for Alvarez, whose victory earned Ring Magazine's nod as KO of the Year for 2016.
5. Canelo Alvarez vs. Liam Smith - September 17, 2016
6 of 10
In the third fight on our list from 17 months bridging 2015 into 2016—and just 133 days after the vaporization of Khan—Alvarez made his last appearance at 154 pounds for his second championship stint in the weight class.
There, he stood opposite reigning WBO titleholder Liam Smith, who'd won and defended his belt twice over the previous 11 months.
The two men engaged in an entertaining (if not wholly competitive) scrap through eight rounds before a left hook to the liver sent Smith to the floor and rendered him unable to continue.
It was the first time the rugged and previously unbeaten Englishman had ever been stopped and the second career body shot KO for Alvarez.
4. Canelo Alvarez vs. Miguel Cotto - November 21, 2015
7 of 10
We're heading backward in the time machine and getting off the KO kick for a bit for this one, but it's made up in both significance and quality of opposition.
Alvarez followed up the aforementioned Kirkland thrashing and ended a two-plus-year stretch without a championship belt by conquering Miguel Cotto at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas to win the WBC's share of the middleweight crown.
The 35-year-old Cotto was one defense into a reign that began with a surprise win over Sergio Martinez, but Alvarez countered his movement with steady aggression and persistent work to the body on the way to a unanimous decision by scores of 117-111, 119-109 and 118-110.
"Even though it wasn't prime Cotto," Billy Lyell, a former middleweight title challenger, told Bleacher Report, "it was still a big name and a great performance from Canelo."
3. Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin II - September 15, 2018
8 of 10
If you're looking for the fight that turned Alvarez into a one-name commodity and officially put him over as a mainstream sports star, look no further.
Though the decision was neither unanimous at ringside nor without controversy elsewhere, his majority verdict over Golovkin in their second fight in 12 months—the first was scored an even more vilified draw—proved he was unafraid to venture into the lion's den with a more aggressive mindset than the first go-round.
Alvarez landed 33 percent of his punches to Golovkin's 27 and he scored with more power shots than his foe in nine of 12 rounds.
"A huge performance against one of the most feared middleweights ever," Lyell said.
2. Canelo Alvarez vs. Billy Joe Saunders - May 8, 2021
9 of 10
It was a big fight. Multiple belts were on the line. And a lot of people saw it.
This makes Alvarez's performance on the way to a TKO stoppage gained when Saunders was unable to leave his stool for the ninth round, even more impressive.
The win gave him three of the four significant title straps at 168 pounds and came after a gradual beatdown punctuated by an uppercut in the eighth round that led to his opponent's fractured right orbital bone and first loss after 30 straight wins.
The official attendance of 73,126 put it among the most-attended boxing events in U.S. history and was the largest crowd since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
1. Canelo Alvarez vs. Sergey Kovalev - November 2, 2019
10 of 10
People can say a lot things about Alvarez.
But one thing that can't question is his ambition.
He began his career as a teenage 140-pounder and had grown up to capture belts at 154 and 160 pounds by the fall of 2019, when he made the quantum leap to 175 to take on the snarling Kovalev, who was on defense No. 2 of his third title reign.
The Russian wasn't the vicious force he'd been in rounds one and two, but he was still coming off consecutive defeats of Eleider Alvarez (UD 12) and Anthony Yarde (TKO 11) and presented a daunting threat given big edges in height and reach.
Kovalev more than held his own through the first 10 rounds and was close on two scorecards and even on another heading into the 11th, when Alvarez landed a right hand that rendered the bigger man semi-conscious along the ropes at 2:15.
Game. Set. Match.
"Moving up and stopping a reigning light heavyweight champ," Lyell said, "was a huge risk and showed his versatility."
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