News Top 12 pound-for-pound fighters in boxing: Mythical rankings starring Usyk, Inoue, Crawford

[Takes Two To Tango]

What's your thoughts on this list?

Top 12 pound-for-pound fighters in boxing: Mythical rankings starring Usyk, Inoue, Crawford | Sporting News Canada

Boxing is replete with elite-level fighters in every division, so the pound-for-pound ratings are bursting at the seams. The Sporting News offers their thoughts on boxing's dynamite dozen.

www.sportingnews.com

Along with regaining the unified heavyweight championship with a unanimous decision win over Tyson Fury on Saturday, Oleksandr Usyk also confirmed his status as the best fighter in the world, pound for pound.

Usyk (23-0, 14 KOs) won his rematch against Fury at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, establishing himself as the greatest heavyweight of this generation.


The Ukrainian technician has now scored two wins over Fury, two wins over Anthony Joshua, and a TKO triumph over reigning IBF champ Daniel Dubois.

The run of fistic miracles that Usyk has achieved since September 2021 when he wrenched the unified crown from Joshua is the epitome of pound-for-pound greatness.

The former cruiserweight champ has had to overcome enormous physical advantages and box brilliantly to reign supreme in the sport's glamour division

And it's going to be very difficult for anyone to knock Usyk off his perch.

MORE: Usyk vs. Fury 2 full report and in-depth analysis

The No. 2 rated Naoya Inoue would likely have to blast out Junto Nakatani or become undisputed in a third weight class to regain pole position. "The Monster" ticked over with another showreel knockout to obliterate late-replacement Ye Joon Kim on January 24.

As for Terence Crawford, only a win over the man he's been chasing, super middleweight king Canelo Alvarez, could see the American return to the top of the tree.

The Sporting News Global Boxing Panel, which is comprised of internal and external boxing experts spanning four continents who intimately cover global and local boxing, ranks the top 12 pound-for-pound fighters in the world:

 

[Kovalev's "Man Bag"]

Why Sporting News? Most boxing fans don't use their rankings. Anyway, their Top 10 is almost identical to the "People's P4P" list on BoxRec at the moment. Except Spence currently shouldn't be on any P4P list. Nakatani should also be rated in the Top 10. Shakur at #11? Maybe, but you could put Benavidez or Teraji there instead.

 

[Kovalev's "Man Bag"]

Just caught a mistake in their article. Usyk didn't have to "regain" the unified championship. He's been unified since he initially beat Joshua in 2021. When he initially beat Fury he became fully unified (undisputed). Not long after the first Fury fight he vacated the IBF title so that Joshua & Dubois could fight for it. You only need to have 2 of the alphabet belts (WBA, WBC, IBF & WBO) to be a unified champ and Usyk has held at least 3 of the 4 titles for over 3 years now.

 

[Takes Two To Tango]

Why Sporting News? Most boxing fans don't use their rankings. Anyway, their Top 10 is almost identical to the "People's P4P" list on BoxRec at the moment. Except Spence currently shouldn't be on any P4P list. Nakatani should also be rated in the Top 10. Shakur at #11? Maybe, but you could put Benavidez or Teraji there instead.

Well I was just doing a search on who's the best boxers of today. And than this link to the article came up, so I thought it was decent enough.

Obviously people have their own opinions, so that's all good.

 

[Misery Signals]

How the hell is Spence on there?

 

[Kovalev's "Man Bag"]

Well I was just doing a search on who's the best boxers of today. And than this link to the article came up, so I thought it was decent enough.

Obviously people have their own opinions, so that's all good.

As long as the list has Usyk, Inoue & Crawford occupying the Top 3 spots then that's fine. I mostly agree with Sporting News' rankings.

 

[pugilistico]

Bam and Nakatani shouldn't be ranked so low and Spence shouldn't be on there.

 

[Ara tech]

I place Naoya over Usyk and Junto over Shakur but I definetely agree with the rest.

Naoya is the man, the monk, the myth, the legend, the monster ! Truly a generational talent !

 

[treelo]

Alvarez needs to be below the 2 below him

 

[Kovalev's "Man Bag"]

I place Naoya over Usyk and Junto over Shakur but I definetely agree with the rest.

Naoya is the man, the monk, the myth, the legend, the monster ! Truly a generational talent !

What Inoue's done is remarkable but think about this for a second. He's still in his physical prime. Usyk's a past prime 38 year old that just unified an entire division he realistically doesn't belong in. He's not even a puncher and yet he's able to walk down these dangerous giant heavyweights and smack them around. If you look at his last 5 fights he's been an underdog in 2 of them. Not just an underdog but a big one against AJ in the first fight. I'm not sure whether Inoue's ever been an underdog at any point in his career much less recently (the latter of which is what P4P is about, what you've done recently).

 

[Kratos94]

I'll never understand how Davis finds a way into the top 10 p4p lists. He really has done nothing. Usyk deserves to sit at no.1. Hopefully Inoue can continue to get big fights.

 

[Kovalev's "Man Bag"]

I'll never understand how Davis finds a way into the top 10 p4p lists. He really has done nothing. Usyk deserves to sit at no.1. Hopefully Inoue can continue to get big fights.

Tank's on all of the major P4P lists at #8 (The Ring, TBRB, ESPN & the People's P4P on BoxRec). That sounds about right. Keep in mind that he's been at the top level for 8 years now. We still haven't seen him take a really big risk yet but he's had over a dozen world level fights and has dominated and stopped everyone except Cruz. Tank's a very dangerous fighter. He's up there with Inoue & Beterbiev.

 

[YourBoss]

I agree with Usyk on 1. Crawford, Canelo and Inoue can be placed in whatever order one prefers. Beterbiev and Bivol at 5 and 6 are good picks. i would think gervonta is a better fighter than teofimo, but his resume still need work. i think spence should not be on that list. if crawford beats canelo he is shared nr.1 with usyk.

 

[HuskySamoan]

I place Naoya over Usyk and Junto over Shakur but I definetely agree with the rest.

Naoya is the man, the monk, the myth, the legend, the monster ! Truly a generational talent !

There's no greater generational talent than Usyk in boxing right now. He was an Olympic gold medalist, he won the Cruiserweight super series tournament and defeated 3 undefeated champions in Glowacki, Briedis and Gassiev doing so. He also took out Bellew and Huck at CW. Went up to HW and beat Dubois, Joshua twice and Fury twice to unify the HW titles as well. Usyks undefeated, it's an all time great resume, the only noteworthy fight left for him would be Jai Opetaia as far as I'm concerned.

Inoue is great but he needs to do more still in terms of big wins. I'm hoping he takes the Picasso fight this summer and then we will see if he tried to move up and unify a 3rd division or angle for the Nakatani super fight in Japan first. It's possible Noaya surpasses Usyk as he's younger with more upward mobility (HW is a ceiling) but he hasn't yet.

Crawford is a clear 3rd at this point, his resumes shit. Canelo should be lower than 4th I also think, he's been stagnating and out of prime, hasn't been taking the right fights for years to still deserve that rank. The list is mostly correct though.

 

[Kovalev's "Man Bag"]

There's no greater generational talent than Usyk in boxing right now. He was an Olympic gold medalist, he won the Cruiserweight super series tournament and defeated 3 undefeated champions in Glowacki, Briedis and Gassiev doing so. He also took out Bellew and Huck at CW. Went up to HW and beat Dubois, Joshua twice and Fury twice to unify the HW titles as well. Usyks undefeated, it's an all time great resume, the only noteworthy fight left for him would be Jai Opetaia as far as I'm concerned.

Inoue is great but he needs to do more still in terms of big wins. I'm hoping he takes the Picasso fight this summer and then we will see if he tried to move up and unify a 3rd division or angle for the Nakatani super fight in Japan first. It's possible Noaya surpasses Usyk as he's younger with more upward mobility (HW is a ceiling) but he hasn't yet.

Crawford is a clear 3rd at this point, his resumes shit. Canelo should be lower than 4th I also think, he's been stagnating and out of prime, hasn't been taking the right fights for years to still deserve that rank. The list is mostly correct though.

Michael Hunter was also undefeated when Usyk beat him. This was just before he fought Huck and the rest of them in the Super Series.

 

[that Indian]

Spence is nowhere near deserving of this list in 2025. Arguably, neither is Teo.

Benavidez needs to be in the top 10. I would swap Nakatani and Stevenson, also put Teraji and Opetaia on the list.

 

[Boxiana]

Did the forum layout just get worse!? lol.

Tank has no place on a P4P listing because he doesn’t fight top guys.

Canelo too far up based on recent achievements.

Errol Spence. lol.