Shakur Stevenson has made it impossible to keep him off Boxing Junkie’s pound-for-pound list.
The gifted junior lightweight has now won major titles in two divisions and we saw what we saw on Saturday, a brilliant performance against a quality opponent in reigning beltholder Jamel Herring.
Stevenson has a combination of speed and ability that might be unrivaled among active fighters. It was certainly too much for the veteran Herring, who was dominated from the opening bell and stopped in the 10th round.
In the process, the winner claimed the WBO 130-pound title and a place among the pound-for-pound best. Stevenson comes in as an Honorable Mention, although our best bet is that the 24-year-old will begin a steady climb.
He replaces Kazuto Ioka, who was an Honorable Mention going into Saturday.
Here’s how the new list looks:
BOXING JUNKIE
POUND-FOR-POUND
- Terence Crawford – Scheduled to defend his WBO welterweight title against Shawn Porter on Nov. 20 Las Vegas.
- Canelo Alvarez – Scheduled to fight Caleb Plant to unify all four major 168-pound titles on Nov. 6 in Las Vegas.
- Naoya Inoue – No fight scheduled.
- Oleksandr Usyk – Expected to fight Anthony Joshua a second time but no deal is in place.
- Errol Spence Jr. – No fight scheduled.
- Teofimo Lopez Jr. – Scheduled to defend his lightweight titles against George Kambosos Jr. on Nov. 27 in New York.
- Tyson Fury – No fight scheduled.
- Vasiliy Lomachenko – Expected to fight Richard Commey on Dec. 11 at Madison Square Garden in New York City but the deal hasn’t be finalized.
- Juan Francisco Estrada – In talks to defend his WBA and WBA junior bantamweight titles in what would be a third fight against Roman Gonzalez in November.
- Gennadiy Golovkin – In talks to fight Ryota Murata in a middleweight title-unification fight on Dec. 28 in Japan.
- Jermell Charlo – No fight scheduled.
- Josh Taylor – Scheduled to defend his undisputed junior welterweight championship against mandatory challenger Jack Catterall on Dec. 18 in Glasgow, Scotland.
- Artur Beterbiev – Scheduled to defend his light heavyweight titles against Marcus Browne on Dec. 17 in Montreal.
- Gervonta Davis – Scheduled to face Rolando Romero in a lightweight bout on Dec. 5 in Los Angeles.
- Jermall Charlo (no fight scheduled).
Honorable mention (alphabetical order): Mairis Briedis (scheduled to fight Artur Mann on Oct. 16 in Riga, Latvia), Srisaket Sor Rungvisai (expected to meet Carlos Cuadras as part of a junior bantamweight tournament but nothing is official), Yordenis Ugas (no fight scheduled) and Oscar Valdez (no fight scheduled).