WBO welterweight champion believes he is now the pound-for-pound best fighter after Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez’s defeat to Dmitry Bivol on Saturday night.
Canelo faced the WBA light heavyweight champion as he moved into the weight class for the second time in his career, and suffered only his second-ever defeat as he was comprehensively defeated by his unfancied but unbeaten opponent.
That defeat has derailed a potential trilogy rematch with Gennadiy Golovkin for later in the year and it appears Canelo instead will activate his rematch clause.
The Mexican has often been touted as the best boxer of any weight class in recent years, particularly after he moved to 168lbs to unify the super middleweight division, but he now has a fight on his hands to retain the undisputed top spot amongst boxing experts.
Another rival for the title is Crawford, who is likely to fight the IBF, WBA and WBO champion at 147lbs, Errol Spence Jr. If Crawford is successful with that then there would be few arguments that he is ahead of Canelo in the ranking, though Ukrainian heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk could pip him if he retains his titles against Anthony Joshua later in the summer.
On Twitter after the fight on Saturday night, Crawford made his feelings known, writing: “We know who #1 is now”.
You can read the full top 10 pound-for-pound fights as ranked by DAZN at the end of April here.