Gennady Golovkin holds the title of champion.
Gennady Golovkin . As of May 2017 , he is ranked as the world 's best middleweight by BoxRec and the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board , and second best by The Ring . He was elevated to WBA ( Regular ) champion in the same year , and in 2011 would win the vacant IBO middleweight title by defeating Lajuan Simon . After Canelo Álvarez vacated his WBC middleweight title in 2016 , Golovkin was elevated to full champion and now holds world titles by three of the four major boxing sanctioning bodies . The Transnational Boxing Rankings Board ( TBRB ) is an all-volunteer initiative formed in October 2012 with the intention of providing professional boxing with authoritative top-ten rankings , identifying the singular world champion of every division by unbiased reasoning and common sense , and to insist on the sport 's reform .