'Bam' or Shakur – who’s the next American pound-for-pound king?

Terence Crawford’s retirement announcement in December opened up quite a few vacancies.

There were the assorted alphabet belts he held in multiple weight classes at the moment at which he called it a career.

There was the pound-for-pound throne, which most fans and experts either elevated him to or kept him seated in after he outdueled Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.

And there is the unofficial title of best American boxer.

For the better part of the past couple of years, there was a three-way debate to be had over who was the best pound-for-pound fighter in the sport, but with Oleksandr Usyk hailing from Ukraine and Naoya Inoue from Japan, there was no debating that “Bud” was the best from the good ol’ U.S. of A.

Incredibly, there hasn’t really been a debate on that front since Andre Ward retired in late 2017. Scrolling through old pound-for-pound lists, I can’t find a time in the last eight-plus years that any American boxer was ranked higher than Crawford.

Remove “Bud” from consideration, though, and that designation is finally disputed again.

And the dispute, for now, is focused fairly squarely on two men: Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez and Shakur Stevenson.

But the “Bam or Shakur” question isn’t just about who’s the best American boxer right now, and in turn who should be ranked higher on the pound-for-pound list (where they’re both fairly obvious choices to place somewhere between third and fifth).

If we expect one or both of them to continue to ascend, and we acknowledge that Usyk is 39 years old and will be walking off into the sunset soon, and that Inoue is 32 and showing more signs of being human than he did in his 20s, then it makes sense to predict that either Rodriguez or Stevenson is likely to be crowned pound-for-pound king before too long.

So who will it be? Who’s the next American who will be recognized as the best boxer on the planet? Or, taking nationality out of the conversation, which of these two marvelously skilled and talented fighters will rule the fistic world once Usyk and Inoue have both either slipped enough to lose or pink-slipped themselves before they can?

As much fun as it is to live in the future rather than the present, I suppose we should first address the question of which man is superior now and, relatedly, which man deserves to be ranked higher on the pound-for-pound list.

The pure win-loss records are similar: Stevenson is 25-0 since turning pro in April 2017, and Rodriguez is 23-0 since turning pro one month prior.

The knockout tallies on their records, however, are not so similar. “Bam” is undeniably the bigger pound-for-pound puncher, with 16 KOs to his credit (a 69.6 per cent knockout rate), while Stevenson has only 11 stoppage wins (44 per cent).

Rodriguez has won alphabet titles in two divisions — flyweight and super fly — and is the lineal champion in the latter.

Stevenson can top that with titles in four divisions — 126, 130, 135 and 140 — and the last of those, a reign that started this past weekend, is of the lineal variety.

Shakur has the best victory on either man’s record, the near-shutout of Teofimo Lopez at Madison Square Garden that made him the 140lbs champ and drew comparisons to masterpieces painted by pound-for-pound kings past such as Pernell Whitaker, Roy Jones and Floyd Mayweather.

But Rodriguez has the slightly greater depth of A-level wins. Other than the Lopez wipeout, the only championship-caliber names on Stevenson’s pro resume are Oscar Valdez and William Zepeda. From there it falls off to Robson Conceicao, Edwin de los Santos and Jamel Herring. Bam counters with the quartet of Juan Francisco Estrada, Srisaket Sor Rungvisai, Carlos Cuadras and Sunny Edwards, then a half-level drop-off to Fernando Martinez, and the likes of Pedro Guevara another half-notch below that.

For what it’s worth, Rodriguez stopped five of those top six opponents he’s encountered; Stevenson has KO’d only one of his six.

But this isn’t about who hits harder. Power is just one part of the package. And in terms of the whole picture, there’s not a lot to separate these two standout southpaws.

If we can agree that, for now, Usyk and Inoue are the top two in some order, I’d say it’s similarly close to unanimous that the next three after that are, in some order, Rodriguez, Stevenson and Dmitry Bivol.

Bivol is 35 years old, and therefore working with a timeline closer to those of Inoue and Usyk than to those of Stevenson, who is 28, and Rodriguez, who’s 26.

Also, Bivol just doesn’t pop off the screen the way Bam and Shakur can. That’s no knock on the Russian, and if you want to rank him third for the moment based on longevity and accomplishment, that’s perfectly reasonable. But he has neither the chronological runway nor the gifts to ace the “eye test” to put him realistically in the conversation for possible future pound-for-pound number one.

The choice between Rodriguez and Stevenson, meanwhile, is largely a matter of style preference. They are both outstanding technical boxers, but…

Stevenson is of the otherworldly, once-in-a-generation variety when it comes to pure proficiency. He probably is the closest thing to Whitaker since “Sweet Pea” retired. For mastery of proper offensive and defensive, hit-and-don’t-get boxing, Shakur is an A++. And maybe two plus signs isn’t enough.

Rodriguez is a boxing wizard as well, with fantastic footwork, punch variety, defensive skills, etc. But he’s just your garden-variety A+. He’s one of the best technical boxers of his era, but not in any all-time conversations. But he combines that A+ with an A-level ability to knock guys the F out.

So what do you prefer? The A++ boxer with just enough power to keep opponents honest, or the A+ boxer who can punch like a beast too?

That question, combined with whose resume to this point dazzles you more, determines how you order them on your pound-for-pound list.

Turning our attention to the future requires another level of thought. 

Again, style is a part of it. Not that Stevenson and Rodriguez are likely to ever fight each other (they’re six weight classes and 25lbs apart), but historically, when the master boxer faces the great boxer-puncher, the match-up favors that pure boxer — with Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao and Whitaker-Julio Cesar Chavez the standout examples of modern times. You can even include Oscar De La Hoya-Felix Trinidad if you like, as long as, like Whitaker-Chavez, you’re willing to overlook what the judges said happened.

But again, we won’t see a head-to-head clash for pound-for-pound supremacy between the two current best American fighters. So stylistic considerations only get us so far.

What may matter more is their respective potential opposition that can get them over the hump.

It was beating the likes of Canelo and Errol Spence that did it for Crawford. For Usyk, it took beating Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury twice each.

Stevenson just found something akin to his Spence in Lopez. And the good news for him is there are plenty of additional opponents out there for him if he wants to continue proving how truly elite he is.

At 140, beating Keyshawn Davis or Richardson Hitchins would bowl over the hardcores. At welterweight, conquering Devin Haney would be a massive statement. And if Stevenson gets all the way to 154, either Jaron “Boots” Ennis or Vergil Ortiz Jnr could someday be for him what Alvarez was for Crawford. 

As a junior bantamweight, Rodriguez doesn’t have nearly as many options. In Estrada, Sor Rungvisai and Cuadras, he pretty much cleaned out all the existing big names. It’s telling that in the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board’s ratings, the top two contenders to Bam’s lineal title are both men he already defeated comprehensively.

With the passage of time, perhaps another credible opponent will emerge, but for now, if Bam wants to announce his arrival louder than he already has, it will require going to junior featherweight — two divisions up from where he is now — and beating either Inoue or Junto Nakatani.

I should pause to apologize, by the way, for not including David Benavidez in this discussion. He’s just 29 years old and not too far below Rodriguez and Stevenson on pound-for-pound lists, and I suppose his ascension to the very top can’t be entirely ruled out. But he’s a long shot, compared to Bam and Shakur. This is not compelling the three-way debate that Crawford-Usyk-Inoue once was.

No, when we look up in, say, three years, it’s almost certainly going to be Stevenson or Rodriguez atop that pound-for-pound list.

And Stevenson has the edges in terms of his fighting style and his possible opposition. So, even if you rank Rodriguez above Stevenson right now, the smart money is on Shakur reaching the pound-for-pound pinnacle first.

About the only path there for Bam in the next year or two is if he jumps up to 122lbs and knocks out Inoue. Which is a big “if” followed by a gargantuan “if”.

Then again, Rodriguez is the younger man by two years. So how’s this for a conclusion that covers all bases:

Shakur Stevenson will be the next American fighter to reach the top spot on the pound-for-pound list. But Bam Rodriguez will be the next American fighter after Stevenson to get there.

Eric Raskin is a veteran boxing journalist with nearly 30 years of experience covering the sport for such outlets as BoxingScene, ESPN, Grantland, Playboy, and The Ring (where he served as managing editor for seven years). He also co-hosted The HBO Boxing Podcast, Showtime Boxing with Raskin & Mulvaney, The Interim Champion Boxing Podcast with Raskin & Mulvaney, and Ring Theory. He has won three first-place writing awards from the BWAA, for his work with The Ring, Grantland, and HBO. Outside boxing, he is the senior editor of CasinoReports and the author of 2014’s The Moneymaker Effect. He can be reached on X, BlueSky, or LinkedIn, or via email at RaskinBoxing@yahoo.com.