This Saturday, it's Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez putting his WBC, WBA and The Ring super-middleweight titles on the line while Billy Joe Saunders does the same with his WBO 168lbs title in a winner-takes-all megafight airing live from the AT&T Stadium in Texas on DAZN worldwide except Mexico.
Many in the boxing industry refer to Canelo as the current pound-for-pound king of the sport. And with many sources including The Ring magazine, BoxRec, the Boxing Writers Association of America and the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board currently listing him at the very pinnacle of their top-10 lists, he seems to have the strongest case.
Saunders, meanwhile, does not appear in any P4P Top 10s but of course tops the WBO's super-middle list as their champion and is widely regarded by many outlets as the second seed at the weight behind Canelo himself.
Should BJS emerge victorious at the weekend, this outlook will no doubt change drastically.
At Canelo's most recent fight, a February mauling of mandatory challenger Avni Yildirim, DAZN's Chris Mannix ran through his choice of a pound-for-pound top 10 during the televised live coverage. It went as follows:
- Canelo Alvarez
- Terence Crawford
- Naoya Inoue
- Errol Spence Jr.
- Oleksandr Usyk
- Teofimo Lopez Jr.
- Tyson Fury
- Vasiliy Lomachenko
- Juan Francisco Estrada
- Gennadiy Golovkin
Only Estrada has fought since that night, defeating Roman 'Chocolatito' Gonzalez in March. Many of those fighters, including Lopez, Lomachenko and Inoue, are set to return to action in June.
A victory over the current top dog, while remaining undefeated and increasing his championship haul to three alphabelt titles plus the 168lbs lineal honours, would make it impossible to exclude Saunders any longer.
Meanwhile, another big win for Canelo would surely turn his majority status as pound-for-pound king into a unanimous sentiment. If he makes an example of BJS in Texas, expect the few sources who currently do not consider him to be ranked #1 such as ESPN to move him up to the top.