Canelo Alvarez

Santos Saúl "Canelo" Álvarez Barragán (Latin American Spanish: [saˈul ˈalβaɾes]; born 18 July 1990) is a Mexican professional boxer. He has held multiple world championships in four weight classes, from light middleweight to light heavyweight, including unified titles in three of those weight classes. In 2021, Álvarez became the first boxer in history to become the undisputed super middleweight champion, before becoming a two-time undisputed super middleweight champion in 2025. He also held the Ring magazine super middleweight title from 2020 to 2025.

Álvarez began his professional boxing career at age 15 and, by 20, became the youngest boxer to claim the World Boxing Council (WBC) light middleweight title in 2011. In 2013, he beat Austin Trout to win the World Boxing Association (WBA) (Unified version) and Ring titles. In the same year, he lost his WBC and Ring light middleweight titles to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in his first professional defeat. He defeated Miguel Cotto to win the WBC and Ring middleweight titles in 2016. That same year he returned to light middleweight to beat Liam Smith to win the World Boxing Organization (WBO) title. In 2017, he fought unified middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin to a split draw. Their rematch in 2018 saw Álvarez beat Golovkin to become the WBA (Super version), WBC, and Ring middleweight champion. The following year, he beat Rocky Fielding for the WBA super middleweight title (Regular version) and won the International Boxing Federation (IBF) middleweight title from Daniel Jacobs in 2019. Later that year, Álvarez made his light heavyweight debut, knocking out former unified champion Sergey Kovalev to claim the WBO title.

He went on to beat three unbeaten fighters (Callum Smith, Billy Joe Saunders, and Caleb Plant) to win all four titles at super middleweight, a feat he achieved inside 12 months. In May 2022, he returned to light heavyweight and challenged for the WBA (Super) light heavyweight title, but was defeated by Dmitry Bivol via unanimous decision. Known as an excellent counterpuncher, Álvarez is able to exploit openings in his opponents' guards while avoiding punches with head and body movement. He is also known as a formidable body puncher. The Ring ranked Álvarez as the world's best boxer, pound for pound, from 7 November 2019, to 7 May 2022.

One of boxing's biggest ever pay-per-view stars, he is consistently one of the highest-paid athletes in the world, making Forbes' list in 2019 (4th; $94 million), 2022 (8th; $90 million), and 2023 (5th; $110 million), and Sportico's list in 2021 (12th; $63 million), 2022 (5th; $89 million) and 2025 (2nd; $137 million). In April 2026, Sportico ranked him among the 50 highest-paid athletes of all time (estimated inflation-adjusted income $870 million).

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