Top Ten Pound-for-Pound

 Here's my pound-for-pound list. I take into account ability and accomplishment. The previous list was posted on October 20, 2020.

1. Saul Alvarez (54-1-2, 36 KOs) [1]
2. Naoya Inoue (20-0, 17 KOs) [2]
3. Errol Spence (27-0, 21 KOs) [4]
4. Terence Crawford (37-0, 28 KOs) [3]
5. Gennady Golovkin (41-1-1, 36 KOs) [5]
6. Teofimo Lopez (16-0, 12 KOs) [6]

7. Vasiliy Lomachenko (14-2, 10 KOs) [7]
8. Juan Francisco Estrada (41-3, 28 KOs) [Not Rated]
9. Gervonta Davis (24-0, 23 KOs) [NR]
10. Josh Taylor (17-0, 13 KOs) [9]

Exiting the list:

Olexandr Usyk (18-0, 13 KOs) [8]

Leo Santa Cruz (36-2-1, 19 KOs) [9]

1. Canelo's win over Callum Smith cements his status as the best fighter pound-for-pound. He has far and away the best resume on this list. He has done it at different weight classes. The true middleweight champion, he just beat the best super middleweight in the world. That was coming off a win over a top 3 light heavyweight. He can box, he can stalk, he has a great jab and goes to the body effectively. He has a great chin and a much improved defense. It's hard to argue anyone else should be on top right now.

2. Inoue is a three division beltholder who has beaten some good fighters. He looked impressive against Moloney in his last fight. While his resume is decent, his skill stands out. He has speed, power, and technique. There aren't the names at bantamweight, so hopefully, he'll fight the winner of Estrada-Chocolatito or move up to 122 where there are some good fights.

3. I flipped Crawford and Spence after the latter's win over Garcia. Spence is developing a nice resume with recent wins over Garcia and Porter. He beat Brook when that was worth something. His win over Peterson was solid too. Spence has the better resume, but I also had a change of heart. I had always very slightly favored Spence in a battle with Crawford because of his size, but now I'm solidly favoring Spence to beat Crawford because of skill as well.

4. I really like Crawford, so I don't mean to demean him. But his resume leaves a lot to be desired. He's beaten faded British fighters recently like Amir Khan and Kell Brook. Who's next, Ricky Hatton? Lloyd Honeyghan? It's kind of ridiculous. Crawford's best win by far was against a very credible Viktor Postol... four and a half years ago! Otherwise, he's beaten some decent opponents, but no one close to the top 10. Recently, his opponents aren't even in the top 10 in their own division. Welterweight is stacked; I'd love to see him face a quality foe.

5. Golovkin looked good against a somewhat lesser opponent this month. He still seems high quality, but his skills may have slipped a bit. His resume is certainly better than Crawford's. A win against a better opponent and if Crawford doesn't step up his strength of opposition, I'll switch the two.

6. The lightweight division has a lot of good young fighters with Lopez, Davis, Haney, Garcia, and Campbell to name a few. Lomachenko is still there. Hopefully they all fight each other soon. Lopez looks a little better than last time even though he didn't fight. He beat Nakatani in unimpressive fashion in 2019, but that win looks better after Nakatani just scored an upset knockout.

7. I had Loma's fight with Lopez as a draw. That's why he's still on the list for now.

8. Estrada is back on the list after stopping Carlos Cuadras in an exciting fight. I love BoxRec, but they only gave that fight 3 stars while Usyk-Chisora had 5. BoxRec seems to overrates heavyweights and that might explain it, but Cuadras also seems underrated. His first fight with Estrada only got 4 stars. Transnational Boxing Rankings has Cuadras in the top 10 in his division even after the loss. Estrada has a big fight with Chocolatito coming up. The winner will likely be on this list.

9. Davis's win over Santa Cruz was legit. I had Santa Cruz in the top 10 before the fight. It's Davis's best win by far, but he has a couple of others like the win over Pedrasa. I'd love to see him take on some of the lightweights I mentioned in Lopez's blurb. With a few wins, he could vault up this list.

10. Taylor just hangs on. He has beaten 4 undefeated fighters in his last 4 fights. The win over Prograis, who was a top 15 fighter at the time, is his best win. Before his streak of beating undefeated fighters, he beat Viktor Postol. I rate him higher than Jose Ramirez because of that win over Prograis and he has been better lately. His win over Postol was better than Ramirez's. Ramirez was lucky to get the win. But it's close. Hopefully they fight soon and the winner could go up on this list.

Exiting:

I have Usyk 11th. He beat Chisora recently. I don't want to knock Chisora. He's like the gatekeeper to world class. But Usyk's win was uninspiring. His two fights at heavyweight haven't been anything special. And almost everyone in the top 10 had a much better win more recently than Usyk. Even Loma's loss to Lopez was a better result than Usyk's win over Chisora, because Lopez is so much higher rated than Chisora. If Usyk can get a big win over a heavyweight, it will be hard to keep him off the list.

Santa Cruz has been on my top ten list for a long time. He has been a very good fighter.

Honorable mentions:

After Usyk, I'd put Jose Ramirez 12th. He would obviously make the list if he could beat Taylor.

Dmitry Bivol has beaten all the back half of the top 10 at lightweight, but he has been inactive of late. A fight with Artur Beterbiev would likely catapult one of them onto this list.

The winner of a Tyson Fury-Anthony Joshua fight could also make the list.

The Charlos, Andrade, and Saunders need to bolster their resumes to gain consideration.