The Corner Stool Competition Index Update: April 2024 Quarterly Update

A look at the results of the sport's best against the rankings

Ongoing project. 

New location.

Welcome to the latest edition of the Competition Index. This is an ongoing effort to break down the “what have you done for me” lately of the sweet science. Boxing has seventeen divisions and the old adage is that one can only fight who is in front of them.

Some fighters do more with that adage than others. 

Drawing on the ratings of two large press panels, this index rewards the fighters who are doing more in and around their weight classes. For some it will look like a pound-for-pound list but it isn’t. This isn’t weighing imaginary hypotheses about who would win if everyone was the same size or engage in resume debates. It focuses on tangible ratings and outcomes to give a snapshot of the moment in boxing.

It’s not perfect (nothing is) but it’s a fun way to examine boxing based on the thing all sports should be about: competition. Coming off a hot weekend that saw Sebastian Fundora and Tim Tszyu create a fistic entry worthy of Fangoria magazine and new champions on the men’s side crowned at cruiserweight, junior middleweight, and junior welterweight, this quarter of the boxing season couldn’t have ended much better. 

It’s time to see how these results, and others since the year began, have shaken things up.     

Here’s a few notes on the update:

• A correction was made from January where Devin Haney was listed with six unique wins. It was an errant double count of George Kambosos. Haney has six straight wins against fighters ranked by Ring and/or TBRB (the most in the sport currently) against five unique opponents.

• Four fighters are tied for the most unique wins over the last three years and/or five opponents: Haney, Saul Alvarez, Kenshiro, and Junto Nakatani. If Naoya Inoue defeats Luis Nery in May, he will join them.  

• While interim champions don’t always merit consideration for the index, Carlos Adames was added. Jermall Charlo’s multi-year absence from the middleweight division (his return bout was outside the class) renders Adames the functional titlist for the WBC.

• Live results mean the index can move a lot from quarter to quarter. This time around, it meant a bump for Kenshiro, the exit of Teofimo Lopez on the heels of a win over a too-low rated Jamaine Ortiz from the division below him, and a surprising new name in the top ten.     

• Five of the top ten have fights scheduled for the second quarter so the next update could see some exciting movement.

• A total pool of 53 fighters were considered for this update. 

Three months into 2024, there have been some highlights but the feeling persists that we haven’t really arrived at the prime cuts yet. If the schedule holds up in the second quarter, hot on the heels of the jolt provided by the outstanding last weekend in March, boxing may be able to harness the magic it had in the ring in 2023. 

For now, this update kicks off with a man maintaining his hold on the top spot: