Will No. 2 Naoya Inoue overthrow No. 1 Terence Crawford?

No 1 Terence Crawford and No 2 Naoya Inoue have had spectacular kills over the past four days.

Crawford resisted David Avanesyan’s vigorous attempt to stop russian with a devastating one-two of six innings on Saturday in Omaha, Nebraska. Today in Japan, Inoue caught up with the sly Paul Butler to take him away In year 11, a brutal fate begins with one of many corporal punishment shots.

Is there anything about their performance that is guaranteed to shake the top of the Boxing Junkie pound list? No.

A change could be inevitable if Avanesyan exposed cracks in Crawford’s armor or Inoue put on a significantly superior performance to Crawford. However, neither of those things happened.

So Crawford and Inoue kept their positions…for now.

Crawford is 35 years old. The beginning of the decline is near. And an elusive meeting with No. 4 Errol Spence Jr. could still happen next year. It would be a dangerous encounter for both men.

Inoue is only 29 years old, which means he has many good years ahead of him. However, a boxer who started at 108 pounds a decade ago said he would give up his undisputed 118-pound championship to move up to 122 for his next fight.

Waiting for him there is Stephen Fulton, a brilliant boxer and naturally larger man. It could be a tough match for Inoue.

Keep stable.

Next weight scores: No. 10 Gervonta Davis will face Hector Garcia on January 7.

Here’s what the list looks like at the moment:

boxing addict
POUND-FOR-POUND

1. Terence Crawford – No scheduled wars.
2. Naoya Inoue – No scheduled wars.
3. Oleksandr Usyk – No wars scheduled.
4. Errol Spence Jr. – No scheduled wars.
5. Dmitri Bivol – No scheduled wars.
6. Tyson’s Rage – No scheduled wars.
7. Juan Francisco Estrada – No scheduled wars.
8. Canelo Alvarez– No scheduled wars.
9. Jermell Charlo – Scheduled to defend his undisputed middleweight championship against Tim Tszyu on January 28 in Las Vegas.
10. Gervonta Davis – Scheduled to play Hector Garcia on January 7 in Washington, DC
11. Vasiliy Lomachenko – Reportedly in talks to challenge undisputed lightweight champion Devin Haney but no official announcement has been made yet.
12. Artur Betterbiev – Expected to defend the lightweight belt against Anthony Yarde on January 28 in London.
13. Shakur Stevenson – No scheduled wars.
14. Roman Gonzalez – There are no scheduled wars.
15. Devin Haney – Reportedly in talks to defend his undisputed lightweight championship against Vasiliy Lomachenko but no official announcement has been made..

honorable mention (alphabetically): David Benavidez (believed to have reached an agreement to fight Caleb Plant early next year but no official announcement yet); Jermall Charlo (no battle schedule); Stephen Fulton Jr. (no battle schedule); Kazuto Ioka (scheduled to face Joshua Franco in a junior bantamweight title match on New Year’s Eve in Tokyo); Josh Taylor (scheduled to defend his WBO bodyweight title in a rematch against Jack Catterall on February 4 in Glasgow, Scotland).