Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev have leapfrogged Canelo Alvarez in the latest Ring Magazine pound-for-pound rankings.
The Russians put on a war of attrition on Saturday night for all four major sanctioning body belts at light-heavyweight.
Canelo continues to tumble down the pound-for-pound rankingsGETTY
The contest was extremely close with both men being separated by four or fewer punches in eight of the 12 rounds.
But in the end, Beterbiev was awarded the majority decision.
In doing so, he became the first undisputed light-heavyweight champion of the four-belt era and shot up from sixth to fourth place in the pound-for-pound rankings behind Terence Crawford, Naoya Inoue and Oleksandr Usyk.
Bivol also got boosted up two places from seventh to fifth for his heroics while Canelo suffered the effects of the Russians’ rise as he fell two places from fourth to sixth.
The Mexican superstar was the pound-for-pound king from November 2019 to May 2022 when he fell to defeat against Bivol.
Since then, he has gradually been slipping down the rankings while he is no longer the undisputed super-middleweight champion after relinquishing his IBF strap earlier this year.
Elsewhere on the Ring Magazine list, WBC and lineal super-flyweight champion Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez saw his ranking dip from fifth to seventh as a result of Beterbiev and Bivol’s movements while the rest of the top 10 is unchanged.
Devin Haney remains at No.10, Junto Nakatani keeps his No.9 spot and Gervonta Davis holds onto No.8.
Beterbiev and Bivol could see further rises and falls in their pound-for-pound position after their rematch.
Both men are expected to run back their super fight at some point next year with HE Turki Alalshikh stating his intentions to stage a second fight.
Beterbiev and Bivol both jumped up the list after their fight
The Saudi boxing chief expressed dissatisfaction with the result and suggested the judges had got it wrong in the immediate aftermath.
“This was one of the great fights of the last 20 years I think, but I don’t think the result was fair, in my opinion,” he told the Stomping Ground.
“The two fighters are like my brothers, but I think Bivol won two rounds more. I will focus and I will try to do the rematch. If they accept, we will do it.”
Two of the judges scored the fight in Beterbiev’s favour by margins of 115-113 and 116-112 while the third had it as a draw at 114-114.
Considering how close the fight was, most felt the 116-112 scorecard from Pawel Kardyni was too wide – especially Bivol’s manager Vadim Kornilov, who revealed they would be filing an official complaint.
“We’re gonna file a protest on Monday,” he told BoxNation.
“I think the judge has to at least have some kind of responsibility for what he did.
Beterbiev and Bivol are expected to rematch next yearGetty
“It’s becoming very destructive to the sport what they’re doing.
“These organisations (sanctioning bodies) have supervisors, the supervisors are friendly with the judges, they’re hugging the promoters, it’s beginning to look like a scheme.
“This judge has done a lot of fights and he has been good in other fights.
“It would be good if they can sit him down and have him count the punches landed.
“I want to see his 116-112 card and how he counted the landed punches from Beterbiev on Bivol and which ones he was counting to get to that scorecard…
“One of the supervisors was tapping the Top Rank guys and congratulating them before the decision was [announced].
“What is that about? What kind of buddy-buddy relationship do they have there? Where is the professionalism of the sport?”
