Artur Beterbiev, the new undisputed light heavyweight champion, and his conquered opponent, Dmitry Bivol, have surged past superstar Canelo Alvarez in Ring Magazine’s updated pound-for-pound list.
Ring Magazine’s decision to place Bivol (23-1, 12 KOs) ahead of Canelo is questionable because he lost his fight last Saturday night to Beterbiev (21-0, 20 KOs) by a 12-round majority decision. The Ring staff are obviously treating Bivol’s defeat like a draw or a win because he should be moved down instead of up in the rankings.
Canelo has been sliding down the pound-for-pound list since his loss to Bivol two years ago in 2022, and he’s likely to continue to be pushed down due to the type of opposition he’s been facing. Canelo’s decision to fight Edgar Berlanga and Jaime Munguia in back-to-back fights has hurt his rankings.
Ring Magagzine’s Top 10 Pound-for-Pound List
- Oleksandr Usyk
- Naoya Inoue
- Terence Crawford
- Artur Beterbiev
- Dmitry Bivol
- Canelo Alvarez
- Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez
- Gervonta Davis
- Junto Nakatani
- Devin Haney
Undisputed super bantamweight champion Naoya Inoue hasn’t fought good enough opposition for him to be ranked #2 on the list. Inoue’s recent lackluster opposition and his unwillingness to move up to featherweight to challenge himself against the sharks should be reason enough for him to be placed at the bottom #10 spot in the pound-for-pound list.
Terence Crawford has been too inactive and looked too poor in his last fight against Israil Madrimov for him to be rated #3. Given his inactivity over the last four years, a better placement for Crawford would be at #9.
He’s still good enough to be on the pound-for-pound list but not in the top five. That placement should be for active fighters who have looked good in recent fights and are not coming off razor-close decisions that could have gone the other way.
Ring Magazine’s inclusion of Devin Haney on the list is odd because he lost his last fight and looked terrible in that match. Leaving Haney off the list would have been a smart move because he doesn’t belong after his loss to Ryan Garcia and his questionable decision against Vasily Lomachenko.
