October P4P: Does Canelo make a move back up after dominating Charlo?

A new month, a new pound-for-pound list!

October 2023

The voters: Scott Christ, Wil Esco, John Hansen, Patrick Stumberg, and Lewis Watson

Others Receiving Votes: Errol Spence Jr 7, Jaron “Boots” Ennis 6, Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez 5, Emanuel Navarrete 4, Juan Francisco Estrada 1

Scott Christ

(1) Terence Crawford, (2) Naoya Inoue, (3) Oleksandr Usyk, (4) Dmitry Bivol, (5) Gervonta Davis, (6) Artur Beterbiev, (7) Shakur Stevenson, (8) Devin Haney, (9) Emanuel Navarrete, (10) Kenshiro Teraji

Same as last month. I was giving Canelo a chance to come back in, that’s how I went into that fight, but I still just don’t see it.

He looked really good and I think the win is solid, but we’re talking about the elite in the sport. If he does that against a David Benavidez and not a guy who’s been at 154 his entire career and hasn’t fought in a year and change, he’ll come back in. But I didn’t see him in before based on recent form and while I thought he was sharp, the competition was lacking in a P4P sense. Jermell Charlo is a good fighter

Wil Esco

(1) Terence Crawford, (2) Naoya Inoue, (3) Oleksandr Usyk, (4) Dmitry Bivol, (5) Jaron “Boots” Ennis, (6) Canelo Alvarez, (7) Artur Beterbiev, (8) Shakur Stevenson, (9) Devin Haney, (10) Gervonta Davis

I had enough foresight to remove Jermell Charlo from my P4P list even before this loss to Canelo, and his performance against Canelo leaves me with a sense of vindication.

As for Canelo, it’s hard for me to raise or drop his stock all that much considering what we saw over the weekend. Canelo showed an improved ability to cut off the ring, but he still didn’t look quite like the best version I’ve ever seen of him. That’s perfectly understandable. Even still, Canelo did look plenty good all in all. So call it recency bias or what have you, but I’m bumping him up one spot, swapping places with Beterbiev.

John Hansen

(1) Naoya Inoue, (2) Terence Crawford, (3) Oleksandr Usyk, (4) Dmitry Bivol, (5) Artur Beterbiev, (6) Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, (7) Kenshiro Teraji, (8) Errol Spence Jr, (9) Emanuel Navarrete, (10) Gervonta Davis

No changes for me this month. I did think about it after last weekend, but slotting Canelo in means dropping Tank Davis, and recency would be the only reason to rate beating Jermell Charlo over beating Ryan Garcia. If Tank had fought and beaten Rey Vargas or Luis Alberto Lopez instead, then I’d have no problem dropping him for Canelo.

So a tip of the distressingly-larger-than-when-he-was-younger hat to Canelo for his work last Saturday. But my list remains the same as September’s.

Patrick Stumberg

(1) Naoya Inoue, (2) Terence Crawford, (3) Oleksandr Usyk, (4) Canelo Alvarez, (5) Dmitry Bivol, (6) Shakur Stevenson, (7) Errol Spence Jr, (8) Artur Beterbiev, (9) Devin Haney, (10) Kenshiro Teraji

September’s featured attraction was Canelo vs Charlo, and while Canelo held Charlo to one or two fewer rounds than I anticipated, dominating a guy 14 lbs smaller than you is kind of the opposite of a P4P achievement when it comes to moving up the list.

Doesn’t look like there’s any fights with the potential to shake things up until at least November, but things should get interesting around the end of the year. Until then, I get to copy-paste this list to my heart’s content.

Lewis Watson

(1) Terence Crawford, (2) Naoya Inoue, (3) Oleksandr Usyk, (4) Dmitry Bivol, (5) Artur Beterbiev, (6) Devin Haney, (7) Canelo Alvarez, (8) Kenshiro Teraji, (9) Gervonta Davis, (10) Juan Francisco Estrada

Canelo shot five on a par-five in cruising past Charlo, expectedly. Beating a guy who is moving up two weight classes won’t see you make any moves in the P4P ranking (following my interpretation of the mythical list), so the Mexican sticks in at No. 7 with the list not changing a jot.

Kenshiro was brilliant to watch from ringside in Tokyo. He took a few whacks from a gallant Budler but never really looked in trouble as his power eventually came through. I toyed with bumping him up and few spots, but thought I would probably be fan-boying.

Opetaia looks the real deal at cruiserweight and on the eye test could be the biggest climber below 10th spot. He could well be a couple of big wins from breaking through if he is matched right over the next 12 months.