Former two-weight world champion, Carl Frampton, has revealed his updated pound-for-pound top five as 2022 draws to a close.
The BT Sport pundit admitted that he finds such lists difficult to put together, as you must factor in fighters fighting outside of their optimum weight class and also compare the level of competition that they are fighting.
However, on BT show ‘Chatterbox’, ‘The Jackal’ managed to name his top five in the sport.
“Number one Usyk, Number two Inoue, Number three Canelo, I’ve got Crawford and then I’ve got Bivol. People may say ‘why have you not got Tyson Fury in it’ and I think the reason why I have these guys in it, is because they are working their way through the weight divisions.
Fury is the top guy in the heavyweight division. It is always difficult, isn’t it? Pound-for-pound lists, I don’t really like doing them but that was my go.”
In a later tweet, Frampton did include Fury in some capacity.
“What I look for is quality of wins, weight divisions won at and activity. For me Fury beats every fighter on the planet including Usyk and if he does, he’ll probably No.1 lb for lb.”
The noticeable difference between Frampton’s current list and his past ones, is that Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez has dropped from top spot to number three.
In November last year, Frampton told BT Sport that Canelo was the pound-for-pound number one. However, a difficult 2022 for the Mexican, where he lost for the first time since defeat to Floyd Mayweather almost eight years ago, has knocked him off top spot.
The man who beat him, Dmitry Bivol, has managed to sneak into the top five in Frampton’s opinion, following his upset victory over the four-weight world champion.
The light-heavyweight then went on to comfortably outpoint, the previously undefeated, ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez in November and has broken through as one of the most respected fighters in the sport this year. As far as the 2022 Fighter of the Year award is concerned, Bivol is sure to be amongst the top contenders.
Ironically, last year Frampton said that another win over Anthony Joshua would not make Oleksandr Usyk a pound-for-pound number one.
However, Canelo’s loss has meant that the Ukrainian has moved up in his rankings and now holds that position as he continues his pursuit of the undisputed heavyweight world title.
A win for Usyk in his rumoured contest against Fury would make him the pound-for-pound king in the book of most fight fans and, as we look towards 2023, the fight is the stand-alone must-see fight of next year.