Absolute dominance. There is no other way to describe Terence Crawford’s ninth-round TKO win over Errol Spence on Saturday night in Las Vegas at the T-Mobile Arena.
The long-awaited welterweight battle didn’t just crown Crawford as the undisputed 147-pound champion, it also made the Omaha, Nebraska native the very easy choice as the man to top my first pound-for-pound list.
The 35-year-old Crawford battered Spence throughout, dropping him once in the second round and twice in the seventh before referee Harvey Dock called an end to the one-sided slaughter in the ninth round. Spence won just one round in the fight on my scorecard and was out-landed 185 to 96 in bout overall, according to data provided by Compubox.
With Crawford’s win in the bag this list has to start with him.
1 – Terence Crawford 40-0, 31 KOs
Last Fight – 9th-Round TKO victory over Errol Spence on July 29
Crawford didn’t just prove he was the best fighter at 147 pounds. He solidified his legacy as one of the best in history with his masterclass performance against Spence. No one can make a better case for being No. 1 on the pound-for-pound list.
2 – Naoya Inoue 25-0, 22 KOs
Last Fight – 8th-Round TKO victory over Stephen Fulton on July 25
Had Spence beat Crawford, quite honestly, I might have elevated Inoue to the top spot. The Monster has been nothing short of spectacular since he began his career, and his destruction of Fulton–after moving up to 122 pounds–further secures him as one of the sport’s elite.
3 – Canelo Alvarez 58-2-2, 39 KOs
Last Fight – Unanimous Decision win over John Ryder on May 6
I’ve seen Canelo insultingly low on a number of pound-for-pound lists. Call it Canelo fatigue, or whatever, but let’s not forget the only losses on Alvarez’s record have come to Dmitry Bivol and Floyd Mayweather Jr. The draws came against Gennady Golovkin and Jorge Juarez back when the Mexican legend was just 16 years old. Canelo is still one of the three best fighters in the world, and arguably the biggest draw. An impressive win over Jermell Charlo on September 30 will likely make an impression.
4 – Dmitry Bivol 21-0, 11 KOs
Last Fight – Unanimous Decision win over Gilberto Ramirez Nov 2022
Yes, he dominated Canelo when they met in May 2022, but this is a pound-for-pound list and Bivol’s excellence has been exclusive to the light heavyweight division. Even with him performing at 175 pounds exclusively for the past seven years, Bivol still deserves his respect. If he continues to put on performances like he did against Canelo and Ramirez, being a one-weight-class fighter won’t be enough to keep him from climbing.
5 – Tyson Fury 33-0-1, 24 KOs
Last Fight – 10th-Round TKO win over Dereck Chisora in Dec. 2022
Fury hasn’t fought in 2023, and his next in-ring encounter will be against Professional Fighters League mixed martial artist and former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou. However, there isn’t a single heavyweight in the world that I would install as a favorite to defeat Fury. With impressive wins over Chisora and Dillian Whyte coming after back-to-back TKO wins over Deontay Wilder, it is hard to keep the Gypsy King out of the top five.
6 – Gervonta Davis 29-0, 27 KOs
Last Fight – 7th-Round KO win over Ryan Garcia in April
The 135-pound division is the hottest in boxing and Davis’ seventh-round KO win over Ryan Garcia was big for him and the sport. The fight seemed to spark the Crawford-Spence unification bout and it pushed Davis to the top of the class in the division. A win over Devin Haney, Shakur Stevenson or Vasyl Lomachenko might land Davis in the top five.
7 – Oleksandr Usyk 20-0, 13 KOs
Last Fight – Split-Decision win over Anthony Joshua in August 2022
Back-to-back wins over Joshua has spruced up Usyk’s resume, but I’m not sure how much the unanimous and split-decision victories over a seemingly compromised AJ mean at this stage of the game. The undefeated Usyk will put his IBF, WBA and WBO titles on the line in August when he defends against Daniel DuBois in Wroclaw. Perhaps we’ll see something in this performance that inspires an elevation above Davis, or perhaps even ahead of Fury.
8 – Devin Haney 30-0, 15 KOs
Last Fight – Unanimous-Decision win over Vasyl Lomachenko in May 2023
Despite fading late in his win over Lomachenko and being touched consistently by the Ukrainian veteran, Haney has solidified himself as one of boxing’s elite. Since winning a unanimous decision over Yuriorkis Gamboa in November 2020, all Haney has done is raise the level of competition, while still marching to mostly easy wins over Jorge Linares, Joseph Diaz, two wins over George Kambosos Jr. and Lomachenko. That’s an impressive list of defeated opponents. Still, Haney needs one more big win over one of the top young fighters in his weight region to take the next step. However, it appears a clash at 140 pounds against Regis Prograis is next rather than a fight with Shakur Stevenson or Davis.
9 – Shakur Stevenson 20-0, 10 KOs
Last Fight – 6th-Round TKO win over Shuichiro Yoshino in April 2023
Stevenson is seemingly chasing bigger fights with his contemporaries Haney, but as of July 29, he doesn’t have a public agreement to face Davis or Haney. He is the No. 1 contender for the latter’s WBC title. Stevenson, a two-division champion, is looking for a title in his third, and the hope was that he would get that shot against Haney. If Stevenson doesn’t get the fight soon, he’ll remain a bit behind the top fighters who have already had the opportunity to prove their mettle against more elite competition.
10 – Errol Spence 28-1, 22 KOs
Last Fight – 9th-Round TKO loss to Terence Crawford on July 29
Is Spence the same fighter since his scary car accident in 2019? Is it too difficult for him to make 147 pounds? Is Crawford simply a better fighter? Is it a mixture of the three things? It is hard to determine what happened on Saturday night, but Spence looked like a shell of the fighter who once ripped through the 147-pound division. He’d had two fights since returning from his accident, but neither of the opponents in those fights (Danny Garcia and Yordenis Ugas) tested Spence the way Crawford did. The drain of making 147 pounds might also be too much for Spence to overcome. That’s concerning if and when he rematches Crawford later this year. The winner of the fight–in this case Crawford–gets to choose the weight class for the rematch, and it is hard imagine him making it easy on Spence and fighting him at 154 pounds.
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