Terence Crawford, Naoya Inoue pull away from field in first ranking of boxing's greatest fighters

It has been a long time in boxing since there was such a big gap between the top two fighters in the world and then everyone else. Terence Crawford and Naoya Inoue have created a Grand Canyon-sized gulf between themselves and the rest of the best boxers in the world.

Crawford won the undisputed welterweight title when he routed Errol Spence Jr. on July 29 in Las Vegas. The bout was one-sided from the outset as Crawford tore Spence to shreds and stopped him in nine one-side rounds. While many, including myself, picked Crawford to win, no one other than Crawford and perhaps trainer Brian McIntyre foresaw such a one-sided beatdown.

In the process, Crawford became a two-time undisputed champion. He won all of the belts at super lightweight in 2017.

But Crawford, mind-bogglingly, wasn't the consensus Fighter of the Year. While I would have picked him as my Fighter of the Year, there was a good case to be made for Naoya Inoue. On Dec. 13, 2022, Crawford unified the bantamweight titles by blowing out Paul Butler, stopping him in the 11th. Though that didn't count in the Fight of the Year voting for 2023, it set Inoue up for an historic year in 2023.

He won two of the super bantamweight belts when he defeated Stephen Fulton on July 25, then unified a second division in a year when he knocked out Marlon Tapales in the 10th on Dec. 26.

I would have voted Crawford because Spence is better than either Fulton or Tapales, but both choices are valid.

And as a result, I'll go Crawford first and Inoue second in the first KevinIole.com Sweet 16 ranking of boxing's greatest male fighters (FWIW, I'lll begin compiling a female Sweet 16 later this year).

No one is close to those two at this point. Unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk can close the gap if he defeats WBC champion Tyson Fury when they meet in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Feb. 17, but at this stage, Crawford and Inoue have essentially lapped the field.

I rank them on current form, quality wins, quality of losses, how they lost and who they lost to, and activity. I won't rank anyone who is suspended for an anti-doping violation, and I won't rank anyone who hasn't fought in one calendar year unless they have a fight scheduled on the day I'm doing my ranking.

Here's how I see 1 through 16 lining up at this stage: