Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez made it clear last year that he wants to unify the five major belts of the super-middleweight division, and that he did not plan on taking an eternity to do so.
Since defeating Callum Smith in December to officially begin his attempt at a complete 168lbs takeover, he easily defended those belts against Avni Yildirim in February and then added Billy Joe Saunders' WBO title to the pile this past weekend in Arlington, Texas.
While this is undoubtedly the hottest run of Canelo's professional career so far, he is no stranger to world title wins.
Here's a rundown of his resume as a world championship boxer.
How many world titles has Canelo won?
The WBO super-middle belt he acquired on Saturday was the 15th world boxing championship of 30-year-old Alvarez's career so far.
How many weight divisions has Canelo been a champion?
In addition to super-middleweight, where Alvarez currently rules the roost, he has also been a recognised world champion at middleweight, light-middleweight/super-welterweight and light-heavyweight.
How many world titles does Canelo own right now?
After the win over Saunders, Alvarez is currently the WBA, WBC, WBO and The Ring super-middleweight champion. He has three of the four 'alphabet' world titles, as well as The Ring magazine's distinction of being the 'lineal' champion in the division (which, wherever it can, follows the ethos of "to be the champion you must beat the champion").
Whether you choose to recognise The Ring belt as being on equal footing to the four major sanctioning bodies' world titles or not, only one championship in the division does not currently belong to Canelo: the IBF title held by unbeaten American Caleb Plant.
List of Canelo's world title wins
- beat Matthew Hatton on Mar. 5, 2011 to win vacant WBC light-middleweight title
- beat Austin Trout on Apr. 20, 2013 for Trout's WBA light-middleweight title
- also won the vacant The Ring light-middleweight title in the above win over Trout
- beat Miguel Cotto on Nov. 21, 2015 for Cotto's The Ring middleweight title
- also won the vacant WBC middleweight title in the above win over Cotto
- beat Liam Smith on Sept. 17, 2016 for Smith's WBO light-middleweight title
- beat Gennadiy Golovkin on Sept. 15, 2018 for Golovkin's WBA middleweight title
- also regained Golovkin's WBC middleweight title in the above contest
- also regained the vacant The Ring middleweight title in the above contest
- beat Rocky Fielding on Dec. 15, 2018 for Fielding's 'regular' WBA super-middleweight title
- beat Daniel Jacobs on May 4, 2019 for Jacobs' IBF middleweight title
- beat Sergey Kovalev on Nov. 2, 2019 for Kovalev's WBO light-heavyweight title
- beat Callum Smith on Dec. 19, 2020 for Smith's The Ring super-middleweight title*
- also won the vacant WBC super-middleweight title in the above win over Smith
- beat Billy Joe Saunders on May 8, 2021 for Saunders' WBO super-middleweight title
*Canelo, as 'regular' WBA super-middleweight champion, defeated reigning 'super' WBA champion Smith and the sanctioning body chose to recognise Alvarez as their unified champion as opposed to denoting a separate title win
How many world titles has Canelo lost?
Alvarez has famously lost just one fight in his 59-bout career so far (56 wins, two draws). That came to the 50-0 Floyd Mayweather Jr. in September 2013, a loss which saw Mayweather take Canelo's WBC and The Ring light-middleweight titles. As a result, those two titles are the only two out of 15 a boxer has managed to beat Alvarez for. The other 13 titles were either stripped/vacated, or are currently still owned by Canelo.