{"id":741278,"date":"2026-08-17T23:26:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T23:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/741278\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T23:26:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T23:26:07","slug":"james-toney-snubs-usyk-stevenson-and-inoue-when-naming-the-best-fighter-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/741278\/","title":{"rendered":"James Toney snubs Usyk, Stevenson and Inoue when naming the best fighter in the world"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

As 2025 came to a close, fans were debating whether Terence Crawford becoming a three-division undisputed champion outweighed Oleksandr Usyk\u2019s legendary title reigns at both cruiserweight and heavyweight.<\/p>\n

However, Crawford\u2019s retirement and then Usyk\u2019s underwhelming display against Rico Verhoeven in May<\/a> has blown the debate wide open, with many fans believing that Japanese sensation, Inoue, should take top spot.<\/p>\n

Although, in an interview with About Boxing<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know why [people think Shakur is pound-for-pound number one]. What has he done?<\/p>\n

\u201cWrong 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\u2019s not.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s his fault because if he wants to be top dog, fight the best fighters out there. Don\u2019t make excuses. I did it, Roy [Jones Jr.] did it, Marvin Hagler did it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to talk bad, back it up, like I do, every time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benavidez halted Gilberto \u2018Zurdo\u2019 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<\/a>, with a fight against Interim champion, Michal Cieslak, currently being rumoured.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The position of pound-for-pound number one has become much more open during 2026, but James Toney offered a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":741279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-741278","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\/741278","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=741278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}