Tyson Fury narrowly misses out on place in boxing’s top ten longest reigning male world champions, but Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford feature
Tyson Fury has now reigned as the WBC heavyweight king for three years and eight months.
However, this is still not enough to rank him among the top ten longest reigning world champions in men's boxing as he currently comes in at number 11, with top spot going to a fighter who has owned his belt for over seven years.
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For clarity, to be considered for this list, a fighter must have been in possession of at least one of the four legitimate versions of the boxing world titles (WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO) for a consistent period of time.
WBA 'regular' belts, WBC 'franchise' belts and various 'interim' belts do not count - so if a fighter is upgraded from 'interim' or 'regular' to become the full world champion, their reign began from the moment they were upgraded.
If a fighter reigned as a world champion in one weight class, but vacated their titles before moving up and winning another belt in the division above, then they have broken their reign.
An example of this is Naoya Inoue, who vacated all of his bantamweight world titles in January, and then won the WBC and WBO super-bantamweight world titles in July.
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However, if a fighter retained his world titles from a lower weight class and only vacated them after winning another in the division above, then their reign is unbroken.
An example of this is Canelo Alvarez, who features at number five on the list as he did not vacate his WBA middleweight world title until January 2021 - after winning the WBA and WBC super-middleweight world titles in December 2020.
Therefore Canelo has reigned as a world champion for every day since he won his middleweight world titles in September 2018, whereas Inoue had a six-month period this year where he was not a reigning world champion and so misses out on a place on this list.
Another bizarre absence is Devin Haney, who was declared WBC lightweight 'champion in recess' in December 2019, which broke his reign before he was reinstated in April 2020.
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10. Julio Cesar Martinez - 3 years 10 months
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9. Jermell Charlo - 3 years, 10 months
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8. Dmitry Bivol - 4 years
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7. Arsen Goulamirian - 4 years, 1 month
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6. Jermall Charlo - 4 years, 4 months
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5. Canelo Alvarez - 5 years, 1 month
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4. Terence Crawford - 5 years, 4 months
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3. Artem Dalakian - 5 years, 8 months
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2. Artur Beterbiev - 5 years, 11 months
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1. Knockout CP Freshmart - 7 years, 4 months
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