Best Boxers in EVERY Weight Class RIGHT NOW

Every month, we take a look at the top ten Heavyweights in boxing. But what about the other weight classes? Today, we’ll delve a little deeper into that.

Not every weight class has an out-and-out king at the moment. Some of them were very close run – we expect many of our picks to be controversial.

We’ll start at Minimumweight and work our way up to Heavyweight. For reference, Bridgerweight won’t be included in this list, because frankly, no-one cares about Bridgerweight.

To help create this piece, we used Boxrec for assistance in determining which boxers belong to their respective weight classes. We didn’t, however, allow its flawed ranking system to influence our choices.

Minimumweight – Oscar Collazo

This one was fairly clear-cut. Oscar Collazo is clearly the best fighter at Minimumweight, despite having jumped up to Flyweight in recent months.

He still holds one of the belts – the WBO – at Minimumweight, so we decided to include him as a result. It’s unclear as to whether he’ll move back down, though.

Ultimately, he should probably move up. There just isn’t enough competition for him at the weight, especially when the level of quality at Flyweight and Super-Flyweight is taken into consideration.

Light-Flyweight – Rene Santiago

This one was very hard to decide. Rene Santiago probably just nicks it on paper, but this spot could have realistically gone to a number of fighters.

Shokichi Iwata was up there in our list of options, but Santiago’s victory over him – on Iwata’s home soil, no less – gave him the edge.

By no means an exciting fighter to watch. Santiago nonetheless picks his shots very well. His defensive tactics, while not pretty, are often very effective. Don’t let those four losses on his resume fool you.

Flyweight – Masamichi Yabuki

We felt this one was fairly cut-and-dry. Masamuchi Yabuki is an absolute monster – you don’t often get such prolific KO artists in the lower weight classes.

A very multi-faceted fighter who can both dish out and take a punch, he’s also very comfortable either fighting on the front foot or on the outside.

His excellent timing and propensity for throwing punches at awkward angles also helps him score those big knockouts. He tends to bounce around Light-Flyweight and Flyweight, as many boxers in that category do, but he’s currently the IBF Flyweight champion. Most recently, he out-pointed Rene Calixto in a dominant display.

Super-Flyweight – Kenshiro Teraji

Kenshiro Teraji has only fought once at Super-Flyweight, but takes this spot anyway due to the lack of existing competition on his lofty level.

A phenomenal fighter with a lengthy catalogue of exciting fights, Teraji became a three-weight world champion when he defeated Israel Gonzalez to win the WBO Super-Flyweight world title in July.

His only two losses can be accounted for, too. One came against Masamichi Yabuki, the previous entry on our list, who he would knock out in the rematch. The second came against Ricardo Sandoval last year in a razor-close contest that really could’ve gone either way.

Bantamweight – Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez

Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez is the future of boxing. He has achieved so much in such a short amount of time – it is easy to forget (and often hard to believe) that he’s only 26 years of age.

His footwork is absolutely sublime, allowing him to catch opponents from all sorts of angles. He’s also very powerful, scoring knockouts over some all-time greats in his career thus far.

Like Teraji, he has only fought once at his current weight, but we couldn’t justify putting anyone else above him. Takuma Inoue would certainly be an option, but we’d back Rodriguez to win that hypothetical fight as things stand.

Super-Bantamweight – Naoya Inoue

Boxing’s pound-for-pound king, we all knew Naoya Inoue would show up on this list. After his fight of the year candidate against Junto Nakatani, he is probably the biggest lock in this entire tapestry of weight class kings.

For the last three years, Inoue has been sweeping up and knocking down all comers in the Super-Bantamweight division. He has battered the likes of Luis Nery, Stephen Fulton, Marlon Tapales and Murodjon Akhmadaliev to name but a few.

As skilled of a fighter as you will ever see, Inoue has practically no weaknesses. His monolithic punching power often overshadows his masterful technical abilities – you won’t see a more polished fighter in the world right now.

Featherweight – Rafael Espinoza

Initially, we opted to pick Bruce ‘Shu Shu’ Carrington for this position, but eventually sided with Rafael Espinoza on account of his marginally superior record.

Espinoza is a truly fearsome opponent at Featherweight. Standing at 6ft 1, he is freakishly large for the division – if we were to be cynical, we’d call him something of a weight bully.

Nevertheless, he manages to boil his frame down to meet the weight – he is, therefore, a Featherweight. Not only is he very large, he also manages to carry power and workrate down to 126lbs. His two wins over Robeisy Ramirez were very impressive, especially the second fight, in which he stopped the Olympic gold medalist.

Super-Featherweight – O’Shaquie Foster

This was a very, very close run thing between Emanuel Navarette and O’Shaquie Foster. Navarette’s ‘drunken master’ approach makes him a dangerous fighter for anyone to face, but Foster’s recent win over Raymond Ford gives him the edge – just.

Foster’s upper body movement is incredible, making him a very difficult target to to hit cleanly. He also times his counter-punches to perfection.

Yes, he has three losses on his resume, but two of them came over ten years ago. The other, against Robson Conceicao, was avenged within six months.

Lightweight – Raymond Muratalla

Raymond Muratalla isn’t the most exciting fighter to watch in the world, but his safety-first style is very effective at frustrating and out-pointing opponents.

He shut out Robson Conceicao in his last fight. It certainly wasn’t a pretty fight, but is was a dominant display of defensive superiority.

Abdullah Mason was a strong contender for this spot, as was William Zepeda, but they both have flaws in their style that don’t exist in Muratalla’s air-tight approach.