If you have recently started following boxing, you are probably wondering about the best boxers in the world. It is not easy to tell who the best one is as the rankings keep changing. Also, a fighter may belong to a different weight class and have a unique fighting style than the other.
However, there are pound-for-pound lists that tell which boxers are in their top form, regardless of their weight class.
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Top Boxers in the World
Below you can find a list of the top boxers in the world currently competing in the ring. It is a pound-for-pound list that will give you a clear picture of the current best fighters in the boxing world.
Canelo Alvarez
Canelo Alvarez has not just fought but won championships in multiple weight classes, including light middleweight, middleweight, super middleweight, and light heavyweight. Currently, he fights under the super middleweight division.
Alvarez has been in 57 fights with 54 wins with only one loss against Floyd Mayweather. 36 of his victories are through knockouts and others via decision.
Canelo has defeated Daniel Jacobs, Gennady Golovokin, Miguel Cotto, and many other big names in the boxing world. His championships include word titles in the light heavyweight as well as the junior middleweight division.
Terence Crawford
Terrence Crawford is known as the undisputed king of the light welterweight division and has held championships in three weight classes.
Terrence has fought in 37 matches without losing a single one in his boxing career. With 28 knockout wins, he is one of the best switch-hitters in the boxing industry. His extraordinary speed, counter-attacks, and defensive skills are unmatchable.
Naoya Inoue
Naoya Inoue is a Japanese boxer who has fought under multiple weight divisions, including Light Flyweight, Junior Bantamweight, and Bantamweight. He holds the Bantamweight championship since 2018, and the IBF, WBA (Super), and the Ring Magazine title since the past 2019.
Naoya became popular after the 2018-19 Bantamweight edition of the World Boxing Super Series. With an 85% knockout-to-win ratio, Inoue has been unbeatable since his first fight. BoxRec even ranked him as the world’s best active boxer of his weight class.
Inoue is famous for his brutal attacks and powerful punches that have won him 17 knockout victories out of his 20 boxing matches.
Errol Spence Jr.
Errol Spencer Jr. made his professional debut in 2012, gaining the upper hand against Jonathan Garcia. It is since then that the boxer has never seen failure in his long-reigning boxing career.
In his 27 fights, 21 were knockouts, and the rest were by decision wins. Not only in his professional career, but he was on top of his game during amateur days. Errol holds a record of 135 wins against 12 losses before he became a professional boxer.
Spence fights in the welterweight division and has defeated some of the best fighters, including Kell Brook, Shawn Porter, and Mikey Garcia. He is holding the IBF welterweight world title for the past four years. Moreover, Spence is also the WBC welterweight world title since 2019.
Oleksandr Usyk
Oleksandr Usyk turned pro after seven years of his amateur career in 2013. He was a dominant force in his younger days with a remarkable record of 335 wins against 15 losses. As of yet, he has only fought 18 opponents without a loss.
Usyk became the undisputed cruiserweight world champion in the 2017-18 World Boxing Super Series. But he vacated all four titles after moving up in the heavyweight division.
Murat Gassiev, Marco Huck, Mairis Briedis, and Michael Hunter are a few of the many fighters Oleksandr has defeated.
However, his heavyweight run is moving at a dull pace as his fights keep getting delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. He defeated Derek Chisora in their latest match in October 2020.
Tyson Fury
Tyson Fury is a two-time world heavyweight champion and ranks on top of ESPN’s list of the world’s best active heavyweight fighters.
Apart from Muhammad Ali and Floyd Patterson, Tyson is the only boxer to hold the Ring magazine title two times. Furthermore, he is the only boxer in his division to win the WBC, WBA (Super), IBF, The Ring magazine, and WBO titles.
Fury’s road to fame began after he defeated the former champion, Vladimir Klitschko, in 2015. As of 2021, his professional career stands at 30 wins against zero losses and one draw.
Teofima Lopez
Without a doubt, Teofima Lopez is among the finest boxers in the lightweight division. After 11 consecutive victories, he finally gained popularity after defeating Mason Menard. The victory made the list of sport’s biggest wins in the modern era. The result even impressed Mike Tyson, who tweeted in praise of Lopez, calling him the Man to Beat.
Teofima defeated the WBA, WBC, and the WBO champion, Vasiliy Lomachenko, and retained his unified lightweight championship. It was his 16th fight where he remained undefeated.
Juan Francisco Estrada
Juan Estrada started his career in the light flyweight division and is currently fighting in Super flyweight. He has won titles in all three divisions and was named the world’s best active super flyweight by the TBRB and the ring magazine.
Out of the 44 matches in the last 12 years, he triumphed in 41 and lost the remaining via decision. Over the years, he came across boxers, like Giovani Segura, Srisaket Rungvisai, and Brian Viloria, and prevailed as the winner against them.
He holds the WBC super fly title since 2018, two years after coming into the division. Before that, he was the world flyweight champion for two years.
So who is the best of all?
These rankings can change in a single day as the boxers belong to different weight divisions. So, it is nearly impossible to tell who the best boxer is in the world. As you read above, these fighters keep changing their classes as time passes by. Even that can affect the individual pound-for-pound ranks given by ESPN, BoxRec, TBRB, and the Ring magazine.