The Ring’s Updated P4P: Terence Crawford elevated #1, Overlooking Usyk’s More Impressive Record of Unification and Dominance

Terence Crawford has been elevated to #1 in The Ring’s up to date pound-for-pound rankings right now following his victory over undisputed tremendous middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez final Saturday evening at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

The Ring’s panel has positioned Crawford (42-0, 31 KOs) above the earlier #1 Oleksandr Usyk on the prime spot within the pound-for-pound rankings. It’s a purely subjective alternative by the panel, nevertheless it doesn’t make a lot sense.

I don’t consider Crawford deserves to be ranked within the prime 5, as his wins within the final 5 years aren’t ok. Alvarez, 35, had already proven indicators of fading since his loss to Dmitry Bivol in 2022, and he seemed like a damaged shell of his outdated self in his final three fights towards these fighters:

William Scull
Edgar Berlanga
Jaime Munguia

Understandably, boxing followers on social media are offended about Usyk being demoted by The Ring workers, as he completed much more than Crawford by cleansing out the heavyweight division by defeating these three: Anthony Joshua x 2, Tyson Fury x 2, and Daniel Dubois.

Why Crawford doesn’t deserve #1 pound-for-pound

Didn’t clear out the 168-lb division: Crawford solely beat Canelo at 168. That’s Bud’s solely combat at tremendous middleweight. He has not cleaned out the division like Usyk has at heavyweight and Naoya Inoue has at tremendous bantamweight. For Crawford to cement himself as the very best at 168, he must beat these fighters: Christian Mbilli, Osleys Iglesias, Hamzah Sheeraz, Diego Pacheco, and Lester Martinez.
Not energetic sufficient: combating simply yearly since 2020 isn’t ok for a fighter to be moved to the #1 spot in any ranking group.
Calculated matchmaking: Crawford fought simply as soon as at 154 towards Israil Madrimov, and didn’t combat these skills: Abass Baraou, Jaron Ennis, Vergil Ortiz Jr, Sebastian Fundora, or Bakhram Murtazaliev. At tremendous middleweight, Terence hasn’t fought any of the highest contenders. Once more, his solely combat was towards a pale, stamina-plagued Canelo.

The efficiency by Crawford was not the domination that some followers mistakenly consider it to be. It was a really shut combat, and it may have gone the opposite approach, as Terence didn’t draw back till the championship rounds after Canelo gassed out.

The best way that some followers speak, they consider it was a one-sided combat with Crawford profitable 9-3 or 10-2. It means that they didn’t really watch the combat on Netflix, as a result of it was not that type of combat. Crawford’s offense was too inconsistent by the primary eight rounds to provide him credit score for profitable greater than two of them.

Canelo continuously pushed the previous by 9 rounds, touchdown the more durable pictures, and chasing a reluctant and old-looking Crawford across the ring. It wasn’t a pound-for-pound #1 kind of effort from Crawford. Certainly, I don’t consider it was worthy of even the #10 spot.

The Ring’s Up to date Pound-for-Pound Rankings

Terence Crawford
Oleksandr Usyk
Naoya Inoue
Dmitry Bivol
Artur Beterbiev
Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez
Canelo Alvarez
Junto Nakatani
Shakur Stevenson
David Benavidez