David Benavidez says ‘without doubt’ there is still one fighter better than Terence Crawford

Terence Crawford made his strongest case yet to be recognised as the pound-for-pound number one boxer in the world by beating Canelo Alvarez. But one former super-middleweight champion thinks otherwise.

Crawford created history by beating the former super-middleweight king taking all four world titles and notching up his third undisputed triumph.

Between Crawford and fellow undisputed champions Oleksandr Usyk (heavyweight) and Naoya Inoue (super-bantamweight) a case can be made for any of them to be number one.

David Benavidez, who picked up a super-middleweight world title eight years ago, is now at light-heavyweight looking to be a thorn in the sides of divisional top dogs Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev. A win over either would place Benavidez, 30-0 (24 KOs), in the pound-for-pound top 10 but who does the 28-year-old have as his own number one? A few weeks out from his WBC title defence against Anthony Yarde he shared his thoughts in a video posted on FightHype.

“I think Usyk number one without a doubt. I don’t think nobody even comes close to Usyk because of the amount of big fights he’s taken. Even from when he was in cruiserweight, he was fighting the best fighters and then he went to the heavyweight division and nobody really gave him that much of a chance. He went and took everybody out.”

And at two?

“Terence Crawford. He did something that I didn’t think he was going to do – he beat Canelo. That’s three weight classes going up. He made it look pretty easy. You have to give it to Crawford.”

Out of the three, however, Benavidez believes Inoue is lacking something to elevate him to the top spot.

“Inoue needs that big signature win. Inoue is definitely a great pound-for-pound fighter. Amazing fighter, amazing talent but he still needs that signature win that really puts him on the mountain.”

Inoue returns to action himself in December, as he defends his undisputed super-bantamweight crown against David Picasso.