Oleksandr Usyk leads end of year pound-for-pound rankings as Terence Crawford replaced after retirement

Oleksandr Usyk has finished 2025 as Ring Magazine’s pound-for-pound number one after Terence Crawford’s retirement.

Usyk has had a stellar year despite only fighting once in 2025, where he became undisputed champion again with a KO victory over Daniel Dubois.

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The elite operator led the rankings for much of the year, but was replaced by Crawford, who jumped up to 168lbs to dethrone boxing icon Canelo Alvarez in September.

But the American superstar has now announced his retirement from the sport and vacating his belts, which sees him drop out by default.

As a result, Usyk has been reinstated as the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world, finishing 2025 at the top of the tree just as he did in 2024.

In the most notable change after Crawford’s omission, strawweight Oscar Collazo has entered the rankings at No.10.

Collazo has had a successful year winning two fights, flattening Edwin Hernandez in March before stopping Jayson Vayson in September.

Top five – who is behind Usyk?

As for the top three, Japanese superstar Naoya Inoue comes in second after a sensational year.

He can perhaps count himself unfortunate to not be on top spot after four successful victories in an active 2025.

Inoue stopped both Ye Joon Kim and Ramon Cardenas, before taking out his most feared challenger in Murodjon Akhmadaliev.

In his final outing of the year, he outpointed David Picasso, and is expecting big things in 2026 with a huge clash with Junto Nakatani in the pipeline.

Jesse ‘Bam Rodriguez’ sits in third, having continued his own dominant run to unify the super-flyweight division in 2025.

Ring Magazine pound-for-pound rankings 2025

1 OLEKSANDR USYK – 24-0-0 (15 KOs)

2 NAOYA INOUE – 32-0-0 (27 KOs)

3 JESSE RODRIGUEZ – (16 KOs)

4 DMITRY BIVOL – 24-1-0 (12 KOs)

5 ARTUR BETERBIEV – 21-1-0 (20 KOs)

6 JUNTO NAKATANI – 32-0-0 (24 KOs)

7 SHAKUR STEVENSON – 24-0-0 (11 KOs)

8 DAVID BENAVIDEZ – 31-0-0 (25 KOs)

9 DEVIN HANEY – 33-0-0 (15 KOs)

10 OSCAR COLLAZO – 13-0-0 (10 KOs)

Meanwhile Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev round out the top five, having fought in their epic rematch in February of this year.

Bivol came out on top, but the pair put on a sensational showing of elite skill, and Beterbiev came out with a moral victory despite coming up short.

The chasing pack

Nakatani, Inoue’s bitter rival who has moved into the super-bantamweight division comes in sixth, having had another good year to push on for the all-Japanese mega-fight.

Shakur Stevenson sits in seventh as he prepares for his huge world title clash with Teofimo Lopez in January 2026, perhaps the biggest of his career.

It was a big year for the highly gifted American who fought twice, and has captured boxing fans’ imagination with two entertaining displays.

Meanwhile light-heavyweight champion David Benavidez ranks at No.8, having dispatched of Anthony Yarde in November, and he will now move to cruiserweight in a quest for titles in a third weight class.

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While rounding off the rankings, Devin Haney sits in ninth position having got back on track with back-to-back wins over Jose Ramirez and Brian Norman Jr.

It promises to be a big year for the sport in 2026 and some huge fights are begging to be made.