Who will succeed Canelo Alvarez as the next super middleweight king?

Diego Pacheco will take on Steven Nelson on January 25, with a couple “belts” up for grabs that bear such marginal identities that they aren’t worth mentioning. Pacheco makes this fight intriguing all on his own – he is 23 years old, has pop behind his punches, and is 22-0 (18 KOs). He just might be the future of the super middleweight division. 

That aforementioned future is an increasingly intriguing topic. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez collected all the straps at 168lbs with a brilliant run that concluded in an 11th-round stoppage of Caleb Plant in late 2021. Such is his star power and skill that it’s hard to imagine anybody else taking over the division. 

But Canelo hasn’t shown much interest in giving the best super middleweight opposition the chance. His first move after taking the throne at 168lbs was to jump up to 175, where he lost to Dmitry Bivol. Then he returned to 168, fending off a 40-year-old Gennadiy Golovkin, steady but limited John Ryder, natural 154-pounder Jermell Charlo, and middling contenders Jaime Munguia and Edgar Berlanga. 

David Benavidez, for years the most deserving challenger for super middleweight supremacy, grew tired of Canelo’s shenanigans and went up to 175lbs, as did the dangerous David Morrell. 

Some might even have tipped Munguia as Canelo’s successor after losing to him brought Munguia greater fame than ever before. But in Munguia’s second fight after that big break, he fell in stunning knockout fashion to the seemingly underpowered Bruno Surace. So who is left to emerge from the power vacuum left by the Davids’ departure?

Pacheco is a candidate, but it’s far too early to accurately assess his ceiling. Nelson will be just Pacheco’s third fight scheduled for 12 rounds, and he’s yet to fight an elite opponent. 

Then there’s Christian Mbilli, who recently added a win over longtime gatekeeper Sergey Derevyanchenko, though the brave Derevyanchenko had a biceps injury that restricted his ability to throw his left hand (and was past his prime). At 28-0 (23 KOs), Mbilli might seem more experienced than Pacheco, but he is yet to fight over a scheduled 12 rounds even once. 

Maybe a future Pacheco-Mbilli fight will determine the next man to beat at 168lbs. Maybe Osleys Iglesias, 13-0 (12 KOs) and 27 years old, is in the mix, though he is also relatively unproven. (Forgive me if I don’t consider IBF titleholder William Scull.) But it’s entirely possible that the best super middleweight of the coming generation is somebody who hasn’t popped up on our radar yet. 

Sometimes generations get skipped in sports. For years, a “NextGen” of male tennis players born in the 1990s were thought of as the inevitable future stars to follow Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. Instead, the three legends proved to have extraordinary longevity and suspended their decline. Then a couple players born in the 2000s proved to be better than the entire ’90s crop. The NextGen has now been almost entirely phased out.

A similar sequence of events could unfold at super middleweight. Maybe Canelo holds on to those belts for a while longer. Maybe Pacheco and Mbilli don’t achieve the potential some envisioned for them, and the next super middleweight king is currently an 18-year-old training in the Himalayan foothills. I’m not saying that’s likely – just don’t rule it out. 

Canelo could also decline suddenly and sharply, as many boxers do, and lose to an unassuming contender. This seems improbable for a couple reasons: Canelo hasn’t been hurt meaningfully since Jose Miguel Cotto wobbled him in 2010 (!), and Canelo has received the benefit of the doubt on just about every pivotal scorecard in his fights since he became a star. So good luck knocking him out, and good luck winning a decision. 

Canelo is also a savvy enough matchmaker that envisioning an over-the-hill Alvarez in with a dangerous young buck makes me raise an eyebrow.

One last possibility: The next super middleweight champion is not somebody who boxing fans consider a super middleweight at all. 

That’s right, Terence Crawford – initially a lightweight and most recently a junior middleweight – might shock the boxing world and dethrone Canelo himself (if and when that fight is officially announced). I know a solid subset of keen observers favor Crawford in this not-quite-made fight, but as the far smaller man he is a true underdog, all the more so after Charlo’s tepid effort against Canelo. 

Alvarez’s counterpunches strike fear into opponents – even the iron-chinned Golovkin wouldn’t attack Canelo’s body or open up with combinations against him. For all Crawford’s skill, it’s entirely possible that he feels Canelo’s power and can’t take it.

That said, Crawford is one of the best fighters of this generation and might just have the right blend of skill and sting in his punches to pull off what seems like the impossible. 

The pick here, however, is that the next great champion at 168lbs will not be an established name but somebody yet to achieve stardom. Boring, I know, and plenty of established fighters have the chance to prove me wrong – beginning with Pacheco on January 25.