This list honors boxers who keep the sport going and don't just milk isolated impressive performances. Because no one else has a list deep enough to fill out a top ten with the additional qualifications, I'm stuck using Boxrec as a source. Their P4P list is idiotic but it exists so here goes. The rules are simple: The ten highest ranked boxers on the Boxrec active male P4P list who, since 2019, have fought at least twice a year and have either fought in 2022 or have a scheduled fight listed on Boxrec. Everyone gets a mulligan for 2020, anyone who fought at least twice in 2020 gets a mulligan for a different year. The format is: Full Timer Rank (Boxrec Rank): Name 1 (1). Saul Alvarez 2 (2). Dmitry Bivol 3 (8). Shakur Stevenson 4 (10). Artur Beterbiev 5 (12). Naoya Inoue 6 (16). Gervonta Davis 7 (20). Yordenis Ugas* 8 (28). Devin Haney 9 (29). Jose Zepeda* 10 (30). Jaime Munguia * Users of the 2020 mulligan transfer. If there was no such rule, (34) Sebastian Fundora and (35) Chris Eubank Jr would make the list. I'm shocked Emanuel Navarrete isn't on the list. He's been a shining star of postpandemic activity, but he is way down Boxrec's P4P list (no FW they want to hype I guess) and doesn't have a fight scheduled for 2022. Chocolatito and Joe Smith Jr just barely missed out and seem like great fits spiritually. I had thought about some kind of rule for wars or KO losses but it would have added some of the dumbest names from Boxrec's list. It's a fun list! It's hard to find something that unifies them.
I'd be more interested in seeing your list, this BoxRec list is horrible, I really can't imagine a worse list . It's a cool concept, too bad only Boxrec categorizes so many active boxers. Although I think with our and a few of our associate's knowledge we could compile a reasonable top 50 pound for pound, and a top 20 for each division.
None of them meet the qualifications (in brief, two fights a year with 2020 not counting against anyone), the Charlo bros are the closest out of that lot. It should also be noted that I didn't pick the original list. All I did was apply a set of rules (fixed, no judgement except in creating the rules) to the Boxrec P4P list. It's too bad your idea of an ESB list didn't go over terribly well. It would be cool if there was a top 50 out there that was picked by humans rather than a weird algorithm.
Not sure why it did not go down well to be honest. Actually thought it might be of interest to people especially because you have to factor in the intangibles.
I wouldn't use BoxRec, their rankings are generally awful, and an abomination when it comes to P4P. Personally I think PBO have a good ranking algorithm for the separate weight classes, and they don't even attempt to make a P4P. I would probably suggest only using BoxRec to get a handle on activity of fighters. Then rank them using various P4P list. P4P is always subjective and sometimes heavily favours certain promoters, but you could somewhat account for that by taking an average. TBRB: P4P – Transnational Boxing Rankings Board (tbrb.org) ESPN: Boxing pound-for-pound rankings: Canelo Alvarez drops after loss to Dmitry Bivol (espn.com) The Ring: Ratings - The Ring (ringtv.com) The Ring (by year): The Ring Magazine's Annual Ratings: Pound For Pound--2020s - BoxRec World Boxing News: Pound for Pound Boxing Rankings - Top 50 in the world (*****.net) As mentioned it's a lot of work, but IF you wanted to do it, I would probably suggest going that route. GL
Nice! These are great resources. I'll see what I can do about a list with better source material. I'm trying to avoid having it be about me ranking Crawford ahead of Inoue or vice-versa.
