{"id":588884,"date":"2026-05-17T11:31:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T11:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/588884\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T11:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T11:31:08","slug":"oleksandr-usyk-picks-the-top-5-best-fighters-in-the-world-with-two-major-names-missing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/588884\/","title":{"rendered":"Oleksandr Usyk picks the top 5 best fighters in the world with two major names missing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Deemed by many to be the pound-for-pound king, Oleksandr Usyk<\/a> has now revealed his own pound-for-pound ratings, picking out who he believes to be boxing\u2019s top five fighters but leaving out two major names.<\/p>\n

Usyk is one of three fighters to have captured the undisputed world title in multiple weight divisions during the four-belt era, joined in that elite club by Terence Crawford and Naoya Inoue, who have been seen as his pound-for-pound rivals in recent years.<\/p>\n

Still, Usyk\u2019s incredible run at cruiserweight, along with his legendary triumphs as a heavyweight, combine to make an astonishingly strong r\u00e9sum\u00e9 that has him deemed irremovable from top spot in the eyes of many fans, despite Inoue\u2019s career-best win over Junto Nakatani earlier this month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, when it came to naming his own list in an interview with DAZN Boxing<\/a>, Usyk did not name either himself or Inoue, but included heavyweight duo Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury \u2013 both of whom he has defeated twice.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTerence Crawford, Canelo [Alvarez], Shakur [Stevenson], Anthony Joshua, Greedy Belly [Tyson Fury].\u201d<\/p>\n

The lineal heavyweight world champion returns to action next Saturday, where he defends his WBC heavyweight world title against Dutch kickboxer Rico Verhoeven, in an unconventional bout at the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That fight tops a card which features Hamzah Sheeraz\u2019s challenge for the WBO super-middleweight crown, a crucial IBF eliminator between Frank Sanchez and Richard Torrez which could determine Usyk\u2019s next opponent<\/a> and Jack Catterall\u2019s showdown with Shakhram Giyasov \u2013 where victory would put \u2018El Gato\u2019 back into the welterweight mix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Deemed by many to be the pound-for-pound king, Oleksandr Usyk has now revealed his own pound-for-pound ratings, picking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-588884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}