It was revenge for Dmitry Bivol over the weekend in Riyadh.
Bivol won a majority decision over Artur Beterbiev on Saturday to avenge his only career defeat and become boxing’s new undisputed light heavyweight champion. Bivol’s masterful display punctuated a brilliant rematch that epitomized the essence of the sweet science.
Bivol now holds wins over former undisputed champions Beterbiev and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, as well as a dominant victory over the current unified cruiserweight champion Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez. His résumé is inarguably one of the best in boxing today, so where does Bivol rank on the pound-for-pound list?
Uncrowned’s panel of boxing experts — Keith Idec, Elliot Worsell, Darshan Desai and Kel Dansby — have ranked the men’s and women’s pound-for-pound best, one through 10, using a weighted points system to determine the final rankings. (Being voted No. 1 equals 10 points, No. 2 equals nine points, down to No. 10 equaling one point.) Check out Uncrowned’s updated pound-for-pound boxing rankings below.
MEN
1. Oleksandr Usyk – Unified heavyweight champion (Prev: 1)
After scoring seven wins over five big-name British heavyweights, Usyk has implausibly become a fan favorite in the U.K. The Ukrainian is the epitome of fighting “anywhere at any time.” He has boxed in title fights in seven different countries, mostly against fighters from those countries.
For many, Usyk has completed boxing. After capturing undisputed titles at cruiserweight and heavyweight, and taking out every major challenge along the way, there is little left for the 38-year-old to do. Usyk recently revealed that he plans to fight just twice more before hanging up his gloves and made it clear he wants to face IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois next so he can become a two-time undisputed heavyweight champion, despite Dubois’ late withdrawal from the Joseph Parker fight.
2. Terence Crawford – WBA super welterweight champion (Prev: 2)
Crawford is your favorite fighter’s favorite fighter. Even Usyk recognizes Crawford as the pound-for-pound No. 1 fighter in the world, over himself.
“Bud” managed to clean out super lightweight without too much adversity then dove into 147 pounds as a feared fighter. Boxing politics prevented Crawford from proving himself as the best welterweight in the world for several years. When he finally landed his long-awaited superfight with Errol Spence Jr., he showed exactly why he was avoided for so long. A fight initially thought to be a 50-50 match on paper became a total mismatch in reality, as Crawford pummeled Spence for a ninth-round TKO win.
Recently, the Omaha native edged Israil Madrimov to become a four-division champion. He now heads toward a legacy bout with Saul “Canelo” Alvarez up at super middleweight in September.
3. Naoya Inoue – Undisputed super bantamweight champion (Prev: 3)
Inoue began getting the recognition he deserved from the boxing community outside of Japan when he outboxed and knocked out Stephen Fulton in Tokyo in July 2023. Inoue followed that up with a stoppage win over Marlon Tapales to fully unify a second weight division with just two fights in a mere five months.
Inoue had a more routine 2024 and start of 2025, successfully defending his belts against Luis Nery, TJ Doheny and most recently Ye Joon Kim. He hopes to compete three more times in 2025, facing his mandatory challengers David Rey Picasso and Murodjon Akhmadaliev, then ending the year in Saudi Arabia. WBA featherweight champion Nick Ball and Japanese rival Junto Nakatani are two fights Turki Alalshikh is interested in making for Inoue in December.
4. Dmitry Bivol – Undisputed light heavyweight champion (Prev: 7)
Bivol held the WBA light heavyweight crown for seven years until falling short to Beterbiev in their undisputed title fight last October. During his reign, Bivol made 12 successful defenses, which included an upset win over “Canelo” in 2022.
Bivol managed to avenge his defeat to Beterbiev this past Saturday and ascend as only the 11th man to become undisputed champion of the four-belt era. Bivol and Beterbiev are likely to run it back later in 2025. Outside of that, there are numerous other significant fights available for Bivol, including David Benavidez, a rematch with Alvarez, or the consensus No. 1 cruiserweight Jai Opetaia.
5. Artur Beterbiev – Former undisputed light heavyweight champion (Prev: 4)
After edging a controversial decision over Bivol this past October to become the undisputed light heavyweight champion, Beterbiev fell short in the rematch Saturday. Now the pair look headed toward a trilogy.
Beterbiev, 40, picked up boxing’s 175-pound titles one by one prior to his first career loss and could move up to cruiserweight to become a two-division champion after the Bivol trilogy. A fight between Beterbiev and Opetaia would be a sensational matchup sometime in the next 12 months, and there’s a chance that by the time it happens, it could be for all four cruiserweight belts — meaning a win would see Beterbiev join the top three names in this list as two-division undisputed champions.
6. Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez – WBC super flyweight champion (Prev: 5)
Rodriguez stepped in to face Carlos Cuadras on five days’ notice for his first world title in 2022. It was a two-division jump for “Bam,” but his trainer Robert Garcia had no doubt he was up to the test.
Rodriguez impressed to capture the WBC super flyweight crown and has never looked back. The 24-year-old has taken out three of the four kings at super flyweight and now chases undisputed status at 115 pounds.
“Bam” is targeting a unification fight with WBA titleholder Fernando “Puma” Martinez, with Rodriguez’s trainer, Robert Garcia, hoping to have “Bam” featured on an upcoming Riyadh Season show to expose his talents to the biggest possible audience.
7. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez – Unified super middleweight champion (Prev: 6)
Alvarez has been the sport’s biggest commercial star for almost a decade. The Mexican champion faced the best opponents boxing had to offer across many divisions until his May 2022 defeat to Bivol. Since then, Alvarez has seemingly become more reluctant to take on some of the bigger challenges available to him.
That may have changed now that Alvarez has aligned himself with Turki Alalshikh’s Riyadh Season on a new four-fight deal. He looks to become a two-time undisputed super middleweight champion in May when he faces William Scull, after which he plans to end the year with the Crawford mega-fight in September. Alvarez will then have two more fights with Alalshikh in 2026. Could they be against David Benavidez, Bivol or Beterbiev?
8. Junto Nakatani – WBC bantamweight champion (Prev: 8)
Junto Nakatani is perhaps in the position Inoue was among the wider boxing community before Inoue’s win over Fulton. As an undefeated three-division champion, but one based in the lower weights and away from the Western community, Nakatani is still building a fan base in the US.
Nakatani knocked out David Cuellar on Monday morning in Tokyo to make the third defense of his WBC bantamweight title. He now targets a unification fight with IBF champion Ryosuke Nishida in the summer.
Alalshikh said he hopes to bring Inoue to Saudi Arabia in December and named Nakatani as a potential opponent. If it happens, it’d be the breakout fight Nakatani needs to establish himself stateside.
9. Gervonta “Tank” Davis – WBA lightweight champion (Prev: 9)
Davis, 30, claimed this past December that he’s retiring from the sport at the end of 2025, because, in his words, boxing “is trash, garbage.”
“Tank” is one of the biggest attractions in US boxing, but he still doesn’t have a résumé that warrants the fan base. Despite being at the world level for eight years, his best win is Ryan Garcia, who has never won a world title and that fight came with a weight stipulation that somewhat devalues Davis’ victory.
In fairness to Davis, he attempted to make a fight with Vasyl Lomachenko in the second half of 2024, but the matchup didn’t materialize because Lomachenko decided not to return to the ring until 2025.
Davis returns Saturday in New York against the WBA’s 130-pound champion Lamont Roach. He is a heavy favorite on BetMGM betting lines to defeat Roach. If 2025 is Davis’ truly final year in the sport, he needs to finally share the ring with the high-level competition his talent merits. Fights with Shakur Stevenson or Keyshawn Davis, both of whom have called for unifications in recent weeks, would be just that.
10. Shakur Stevenson – WBC lightweight champion (Prev: 10)
A three-division world champion, Stevenson, 27, is crying out for the big fights at 135 pounds. He joined Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing in 2024 to further that cause and made a successful debut for the promotional company this past weekend, stopping late-replacement Josh Padley in nine rounds.
Stevenson and Hearn immediately called for a fight with “Tank” Davis after Stevenson’s win. Earlier in the week, Stevenson also said he’d be open to a unification fight with newly-crowned WBO champion Keyshawn Davis — a fight many assumed wasn’t in play due to the pair’s close relationship.
Stevenson’s ability is clear for all to see, but like Davis, he needs to be in the career-defining fights to justify a slot in the upper echelon of the pound-for-pound list.
WOMEN
1. Claressa Shields – Undisputed heavyweight champion and WBO light heavyweight champion (Prev: 1)
Claressa Shields is a five-division world champion and the only boxer, male or female, to have held undisputed titles in three different weight divisions of the four-belt era.
She won undisputed gold at middleweight in 2019, where there are only 37 active participants in the world; at super welterweight in 2021, which has 63 registered boxers; and most recently at heavyweight, which is home to just 18 fighters.
With just 118 fighters competing in the three divisions she’s won undisputed in, it’s understandable why the two-time Olympic champion has struggled to find…
