Who's Your Current Pound-for-Pound Boxer?

[LangfordBarrow]

depends how you see p4p

are you ranking just the best fighters regardless of weight class or are you comparing fighters skillsets if they were all the same size/weight?

i have canelo because hes a guy whos moved through divisions and had lots of success.

you could argue crawford or fury are better at boxing than canelo but id say those are the top 3 in some order no matter how you see it.

Gave you the like but even though he's slick Fury will suffer in a PFP setting. If you had Canelo remote controlling Wilder the results would probably have been much different.

 

[LangfordBarrow]

canelo & inoue
usyk- i don't rate as high as many of you, for beating aj
crawford is great but he just beat the #4 guy in division. canelo and inoue have been beating the #1-2 guys, while moving up in wgt.

Do you think Canelo vs Makabu is more impressive than Usyk vs AJ?

 

[LangfordBarrow]

Obviously Canelo, but Lomachenko will always be my guy. Can't wait for his next fight and hopefully he wins and gets a rematch with Lopez.

His problem might be moving up too much in weight. That adds to your legacy but it doesn't do as much for your PFP status.

 

[ironfist05]

I'll say my top eleven is something like
1. Canelo (obvious #1)
2. Usyk (obvious #2 with the AJ win now)
3. Estrada (always slept on, and thought the Gonalez rematch was close enough that I can't call it a robbery, and so I keep Estrada where he is just on who he's faced and beaten)
4. Taylor (on a helluva run right now, can do a bit of everything in the ring)
5. Spence (hard to rank, but the top 147er for me with a very good resume; the motorcycle injury and inactivity hurt him a bit but the fight with Garcia seems to show he's still fighting at the top level)
6. Crawford (lots of good b-tier wins across multiple weight classes with wins over Indongo, Horn, Postol and Porter give him enough sway to make moves upwards)
7. Inoue (would be above Spence, Taylor and Crawford if he fought better competition since the Donaire fight, but other than Moloney (a good fighter, but nothing special) guys like Dasmarinas and Dipaen don't job the imagination)
8. Fury (rematch with Wilder saw some holes poked at but also saw a pretty dominant win)
9. Lopez (The loma fight was great, now he needs to fight)
10. Ioka (absolutely craftsmanlike fighter who is constantly beating top 10 fighters from 105 to 115 and deserves to be recognized for it)
11. Jermell (would probably be top 10 if not for a questionable decision over Castano)

probably a shitty list I'll edit and rethink later, but these are my current impressions; 4-7 are all basically interchangeable for me and I'd change those rnakings just based on how I'm feeling that day

 

[LangfordBarrow]

Here’s a question. Who out of that list has beaten the best opposition while at the same time never having a bullshit gift decision like canelo has had at least 3 times? its a difficult balance becase you have guys like Crawford who up until yesterday had been fighting way below his skill level, so as impressive as his dominance was, the opposition wasn’t.

Then you have Canelo, who has a who’s who in his list but ive seen the fucker lose at least 3 times, maybe 4 if you count the Lara fight. You can even add Floyd to the list, I saw him lose vs Castillo and draw Oscar. Even if you think Canelo won all those fights, they were still far from dominant and the majority of experts and pros thought he lost, most online polls since then still have him as losing at least one of the GGG fights.

Honestly the only one I can think of that has a good combination of credible opposition and absolute dominance is Usyk. The guy as far as I know hasn’t had one bullshit decision plus he had credible opposition while uniting the belts in cruiser then went on to beat Joshua in a masterclass.

Try as I might (and believe me, I try, with all fighters) to look and draw out their flaws (it needs to be done, to counter the serious ball sucking that goes on in this forum) I cant seem to find anything about Usyk. Even with Inoue who is as close to perfect as you can, his opposition hasn’t been that impressive except for Nonito and in that fight he was hurt.

I think Usyk has been absolutely dominant and you cant really say anything negative about the guy even if you are a hater, except for maybe Shawn porter having an amateur win over him when he had been 2 or 3 years boxing as an amateur, 6 years away from his gold medal and still not grown into his body. Even then it was a 3 round fight I think and it was a “button score” system, Porter won by 4 points or something, which makes sense against porter, Crawford was arguably losing the fight early as well.

So if thats the only blemish I can think for Usyk, then I really cant put anyone above him, even Tyson, as great as he has been, has struggled with lesser opposition and nearly got killed by Deontay

I'm not that down on Canelo but Usyk is fighting guys a weight class bigger than he is.

 

[Stormtrooper85]

Is that true though? Maybe it should be "It's not just about who you beat, but the circumstances, and how you beat them."

To a certain extent, yes. However, the quality of your opponents always have to be taken into consideration and Ward made this comment after Bud fought another disappointing opponent that nobody asked for.

 

[KAZSoliloquy]

And unify at 154? If he beats Spence impressively he'll get it from me.

canelo has done far more than just beat the unbeatable boogeyman of his division (spence vs golovkin). he did that, then unified the next division up, won a belt two divisions up (against the former boogeyman of THAT division), and is now testing the waters three divisions up. canelo is miles ahead of crawford

 

[BoxingMMA]

i gotta say, i like this way of thinking and generally agree... but one thing to note here is that usyk has only had 19 fights. i honestly believe that no matter how good you are, if you fight long enough there will eventually be an off night or an opponent that you will just match up badly with. floyd had 50 fights. canelo just had his 60th.

and while naoya has decapitated some poor fools who had no business being in the ring with him, nonito is far from his only credible win. he was also quite lucky with how the ref handled the body shot knockdown - he gave nonito quite a bit extra time there. narvaez and mcdonnell were legitimate champions and he murdered both, while coming up in weight. payano was an excellent boxer, he literally KO'd him with the first 2 punches he threw. so i think inoue's problem is two-fold: he is fighting in divisions where even the best fighters are relatively unknown, and he's effortlessly walking through world class opposition, which makes it seem like the guys he's fighting are no good. they are, he's just a monster.

there is a point to be made about usyk's lack of one punch KO power. i think it doesn't matter, since he puts people away with accumulation of precise shots, but we can all admit that there are plenty of people in the division who can crack better than him. he would have an even easier time dismantling everyone if he packed wilder's power, for instance. another legit criticism of his was that he wasn't moving his head enough - this was prior to his joshua fight though. anyone who still claims this after the masterclass he put on against AJ is an idiot.

i think josh taylor fits your criteria quite well. superb boxer, makes very few mistakes, is taking everyone's cherry, backs down from no one, isn't handed any bullshit decisions. but again, has only had 18 fights.

I agree pretty much, while I would have usyk at 1st, the negatives for him are just that, he doesn't have many fights yet, while impressive at the same time because he achieved so much with those fights. But even when you add the amateur into the mix, he is still very impressive.

I would have Inoue second though, because the guy, as you say, destroys his opposition, even if they are decent. Nonito may have hurt him and gave him a tough fight but there's a big asterisk there, nobody fights Nonito trying to knock him out, if you want to beat him you need to fight smart or hope you get a lesser version of him but trying to flat out knock him out usually means you end up sleeping yourself. Inoue fought Donaire using the riskiest possible style for that fight and still prevailed.

If Taylor went on to fight and beat Crawford (hard...) I would probably have to think about putting him at first as far as crazy achievements go because that would be fucking crazy.

 

[BoxingMMA]

Right, Usyk went on to fight the top dog (well, the lesser top dog) of the heavyweight division and beat him. That bullshit Canelo is doing skipping Bivol or Beterbiev to fight some unknown belt holder in cruiser is fun and a nice freakshow fight but he won't lose, he just wants the belt.

 

[djacobox372]

pretty amazing that the last nearly-unanimous p4p best is 1-0 over the current nearly-unanimous p4p best.

Has that ever been the case before?

 

[LangfordBarrow]

pretty amazing that the last nearly-unanimous p4p best is 1-0 over the current nearly-unanimous p4p best.

Has that ever been the case before?

Maybe Jones and Toney?

 

[is a]

You and @Soul_of_Rage voted other.
I'm assuming Rungvisai was your vote?

He was on my list about a year ago when he didn't lose against Estrada.
Tank Davis is in that list somewhere though. Possibly around Inoue's level or higher?

 

[Minowafanatic]

I think anyone who doesn't say Canelo is just a hater at this point

 

[BonesWinckleJones]

skill wise crawford and not even close

 

[Ruv]

1. Terence Crawford
2. Usyk
3. Canelo

 

[Cariñito]

Then you have Canelo, who has a who’s who in his list but ive seen the fucker lose at least 3 times, maybe 4

No you havent.

 

[Goober stoober]

Gave you the like but even though he's slick Fury will suffer in a PFP setting. If you had Canelo remote controlling Wilder the results would probably have been much different.

interesting perspective. i agree with the take. wilder himself almost had fury twice but that's the kind of power that guys at lower weights cant possess.