Every first or second place choice in the BoxingScene pound-for-pound year-end poll went to one of two people.

It’s the same two people just about everyone else has too. Terence Crawford edged out Naoya Inoue but it’s clearly a two-man race for the moment and 2023 was another example of why. Crawford finally got his generational showdown at welterweight with Errol Spence and destroyed the undefeated Texan for his second undisputed crown. Inoue moved to his fourth weight class, faced consecutive unified titlists, and ended the year with his second undisputed crown as well. 

There was movement below them.

Saul Alvarez’s performances against John Ryder and Jermell Charlo and Devin Haney’s wins over Vasyl Lomachenko and Regis Prograis saw both move ahead of a Dmitry Bivol who largely lost 2023 with one forgettable encounter. Juan Francisco Estrada, inactive for the entire year, exited the top ten as did Charlo off his listless loss to Alvarez. 

Who entered in their place?  

The full update can be found at: https://www.boxingscene.com/rankings/pound-for-pound  

Contributing Staff: Manouk Akopyan, Jake Donovan, Keith Idec, Cliff Rold, Hans Themistode

As always, feel free to agree…and disagree.  This list is for entertainment purposes only and based purely on imagination, hypotheticals, and conjecture just like every other pound for pound list ever written.  Neither it nor any other such list made up of such illusory ingredients should be used to forward corporate agendas of any kind.  

That doesn’t make it any less fun to argue about. 

Last Update: August 06, 2023

Cliff Rold is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene, a founding member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, a member of the International Boxing Research Organization, and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America.  He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com