The position of pound-for-pound number one has become much more open during 2026, but James Toney offered a left-field selection when asked to name his pound-for-pound king, overlooking each of Naoya Inoue, Oleksandr Usyk and Shakur Stevenson.
As 2025 came to a close, fans were debating whether Terence Crawford becoming a three-division undisputed champion outweighed Oleksandr Usyk’s legendary title reigns at both cruiserweight and heavyweight.
However, Crawford’s retirement and then Usyk’s underwhelming display against Rico Verhoeven in May has blown the debate wide open, with many fans believing that Japanese sensation, Inoue, should take top spot.
Although, in an interview with About Boxing, James Toney selected fellow three-division world champion David Benavidez as his pick, before explaining why, for him, Shakur Stevenson is not in the running.
“I don’t know why [people think Shakur is pound-for-pound number one]. What has he done?
“Wrong era. If he did it [became a four-division world champion] in my era, then it would be very impressive but in this era? No it’s not.
“It’s his fault because if he wants to be top dog, fight the best fighters out there. Don’t make excuses. I did it, Roy [Jones Jr.] did it, Marvin Hagler did it.
“If you want to talk bad, back it up, like I do, every time.”
Benavidez halted Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez to claim the unified WBA and WBO cruiserweight world titles with a performance of the year candidate back in May. Next, it seems as though Benavidez will seek to add the WBC marble to his collection, with a fight against Interim champion, Michal Cieslak, currently being rumoured.
