Super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez has seemingly changed his tune on the pound-for-pound debate in boxing.

The debate over the best pound-for-pound boxer is one that has been heated for years. For a while, Alvarez was regarded by most as the pound-for-pound best boxer in the world and it's an accolade he felt he was deserving of as well given how frequently he moved up and down weight classes.

“I feel like the best in the world, I'm the only one who has gone up and faced the best, going up and down in weight is not easy, I deserve that place,” Alvarez said earlier this year.

Fast forward a couple of months and the Mexican superstar now believes the title should be shared amongst himself and the likes of Oleksandr Usyk, Naoya Inoue and Terence Crawford.

“You know, I think we all deserve being number one pound-for-pound,” Alvarez was quoted as saying by Marca. “I think it's (dis)respect to put somebody at the top because, you know, you have Inoue, you have Crawford, you have Usyk, you have a lot of great fighters out there.

“And I think we all deserve being the number one.”

Whether Alvarez believes he's been overshadowed by the aforementioned champions or genuinely feels they all deserve the pound-for-pound title remains to be seen.

That said, the 33-year-old is no longer at the top of many a boxing pound-for-pound list.

Usyk and Inoue are both comfortably above him while undisputed welterweight champion Crawford is seemingly the unanimous number one. He certainly feels that accolade was stamped once he defeated Errol Spence Jr. back in July.

“Without a doubt,” Crawford said when asked if he was the pound-for-pound king. “Like I told everybody once before, the winner out of this fight was gonna be number one pound-for-pound, hands down. You got Errol Spence, was ranked number four in the pound-for-pound. And you got Terence Crawford – I was ranked number one.

“So, you got two fighters that’s in the top five pound-for-pound ratings. How can [the winner] not be number one pound-for-pound?”

Alvarez defends his super middleweight titles against Jermell Charlo on Sept. 30 next. A win there isn't likely to propel him up the pound-for-pound ranks.

But maybe defeating someone like David Benavidez afterward might.