I see it being between Crawford, Ward, Gonzalez, Kovalev or Golovkin. It should really be Gonzalez without doubt, Crawford is maybe the hungriest of the slick skilled fighters that traditionally sit highly on lists. However fights between Ward-Golovkin or Ward-Kovalev could crown a new p4p number 1.
Russel Jr isn't lineal. The featherweight division is horrifically fractured but the best claim of anyone would be Walters as his goes right back to the Marquez-John fight.
I think if it goes the way Gannicus predicts then Ward is #1 for sure. Moving up and beating Kova and Biev is MIGHTILY impressive.
Gonzalez sure looks promising. I'm interested to see him tested against Villoria. Why very little love for GGG? He is the most proven among the other hopefuls mentioned in this thread.
Because beside Ward who he's not likely to fight there's no opponent that'd allow him such a claim, plus he's getting there with age.
Longer shot than some others perhaps but it isn't out of the realm for Inoue to for example unify with Tete, beat one of the legit Flyweights (Roman, Estrada, Ioka, Reveco, Viloria, Mthalane) after they move up, then move up and beat Yamanaka in a massive all Japanese bout. His 2014 was a Monster year (#1 at 108 in Hernandez plus #1 at 115 in Narvaez in dominant fashion).
No. Beating a 50 year old man and a never were isn't enough to get you first place on the P4P list. Not even close...
I look at the list: Gonzalez, Loma, GGG, Kovalev. It is a great time to be a boxing fan, those guys are exciting as hell. You had to those Canelo, and Lemieux and we get great fights every months.