It stands to reason that the best fighters in the world, those who lead so-called pound-for-pound lists, would be men of a certain vintage. After all, to build a legacy takes time, and seldom will a fighter’s physical prime kindly coincide with their gathering of experience to give us the perfect version of that particular fighter. Usually, just as youth is wasted on the young, in boxing experience is wasted on the old, for it is at that stage, when old, a boxer’s body will start to betray them. It is at that stage their experience is used to compensate for the breaking down of their body and the erosion of their punch resistance. They know then that the end is nigh. They know then that it’s a young man’s game. 

For some, the decline is swift, cruel, and unexpected. Yet for others it is more of a gradual process, one that offers signs which often go undetected or are simply ignored. They are ignored by the fighter in question and they are ignored, too, by those who admire them. Just like that, time passes. For us, for them. One moment you find yourself drawing up a pound-for-pound list with all the usual names and the next you take note of their ages and start to wonder how much longer they will appear on your list.  

Today, for instance, most people’s pound-for-pound top five will include the following fighters: Oleksandr Usyk, Terence Crawford, Naoya Inoue, Dmitry Bivol, and Artur Beterbiev. The order in which you find these men will of course vary from list to list, and some lists may include other champions on the rise, but the overall point I am about to make remains the same. The point is this: these men, all wonderfully gifted and dominant, are also not too far away from retiring and leaving something of a void in their wake. 

Usyk, the consensus number one, turned 38 years of age in January and has by now run out of meaningful fights and opponents at heavyweight. His next fight, for example, is against Daniel Dubois, a man he has already stopped in nine rounds. The fight after that, should he choose to carry on, might then involve Joseph Parker, the vastly improved New Zealander whose scalp, alas, will do little for Usyk’s legacy. 

Just below Usyk most will have Terence Crawford, the Nebraskan last seen holding the hand of Turki Alalshikh following the conclusion of Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s lacklustre fight against William Scull on Saturday. Crawford and Alvarez are now set to meet in Las Vegas on September 12, while later that same month Crawford turns 38, the same age as Usyk. The difference, however, is this: although success as a 38-year-old heavyweight is not uncommon, the same cannot be said of 38-year-old super-welterweights or super-middleweights. Typically, at those weights, the rot has already set in. 

This is even truer of those who campaign in the lighter weight classes, like super-bantamweight, the division Naoya Inoue currently rules with an iron fist. At those weights, a boxer historically peaks in their mid-twenties and is usually over the hill by the time they hit 30. Yet Inoue, at 32, has so far proved the exception to this rule. He has avoided certain pitfalls by always moving up a weight class at just the right time and also by dominating most of his fights with an abnormal degree of power – which helps.

Even so, Inoue, despite his monstrous reputation, is still only human. Indeed, we have been reminded of this, and so has he, in his last few fights. On Sunday, in Las Vegas, he was dropped heavily in round two by the unheralded Ramon Cardenas, which came hot on the heels of Luis Nery doing the same to Inoue 12 months ago. Same shot, same result. Both times Inoue climbed to his feet, gathered himself, and rallied back to win, but the knockdowns were no less shocking and revealing. 

As for what they revealed, that is for you to decide. Some will perhaps point to Inoue’s age and say it is only natural that he will start slowing down and that his reactions won’t be quite the same as before. Others, meanwhile, will say that Inoue’s seek-and-destroy style and willingness to actually take risks and entertain, apparently a dying art these days, will forever put him in danger and invite the prospect of him being caught unawares. Either way, there is undoubtedly now a fragility to Inoue that wasn’t evident prior to him being floored by Nery in Tokyo. Either way, beating him doesn’t seem like the impossibility it was back when he was in his late twenties and rearranging his fringe between vicious combinations. 

After Usyk, Crawford and Inoue, you have the Russians, Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev. This pair are interchangeable, mainly due to the fact they have both beaten each other and appear inseparable whenever they fight. They are also relatively late bloomers whose emergence at the top arrived only when money from Saudi Arabia convinced them to get together and try to establish a number one at light-heavyweight. Before that, Bivol was known for going the distance a lot against men not in his league, while Beterbiev was fighting a similar level of opposition, only finishing them instead of waiting for three judges to confirm the obvious. 

Now, having waited so long to rise, Bivol and Beterbiev are 34 and 40 respectively and wondering, each time they fight, if this will be their last great performance. Beterbiev, in particular, can’t have too many visits to the well left, and even Bivol, six years his junior, places so much importance on speed, reflexes and agility that you can’t help but question how many more times he can look as brilliant as he did beating Beterbiev in February.  

The saving grace for those two could be the relatively small number of pro fights they have so far had. In the case of Beterbiev, there have been only 22 pro fights, whereas Bivol has had 25. That doesn’t mean they are both fresh, especially when considering the sheer volume of amateur bouts they have had, but it certainly suggests they have fewer miles on the clock than other pros of a similar age. 

Here’s one: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. His fight against William Scull on Saturday in Riyadh was his 67th as a pro and at times it looked that way, too. Slow of hand, but especially foot, Alvarez followed the reluctant German-based Cuban around the ring for 12 rounds and seemed to have difficulty exploding, or just pulling the trigger, as effortlessly as he did in the past. As a result, the 34-year-old Mexican resigned himself to going 12 rounds with an opponent few had heard of before he got the fight. Some even said Scull outboxed Canelo, though others said Scull aimed only to survive. Regardless, it was dull and it was Canelo’s seventh distance fight in a row, which tells a story of its own. He is not yet vulnerable, no, nor has he been in danger of losing, but with each fight he starts to look more and more like his own tribute act; everything a little slower, a little more deliberate, and a little less certain. 

It was always going to happen, of course. Alvarez, after all, turned pro at the tender age of 15 and has boxed regularly ever since. He has also cut certain deals which require a lot of him – quantity over quality – rather than the best of him. In fact, this proposed fight against Crawford on September 12 will be the first time Alvarez has really been challenged by a supposed equal since he moved up to light-heavyweight and lost to Bivol in 2022. 

For that reason, the meeting of Alvarez and Crawford, two of boxing’s biggest stars, will be sold as the next Vegas superfight. In some respects, too, that is fair, understandable, no lie. Yet it could also be argued that the fight is a forced one rather than a natural one – what with Crawford moving up weight classes – and that it has come too late for perhaps both. As good as they are, and as dominant as they have been, it is hard to imagine Crawford, at 38, doing himself justice on September 12 as a super-middleweight, nor is Alvarez, based on recent evidence, the same fighter he was a few years ago. You might have their names on September 12. But what else do you have? 

Still, they collide at roughly the same point in their respective careers, which is something. The others, like Usyk and Inoue, must try to survive this summer in the company of new blood; younger, fresher challengers who believe it is time for a changing of the guard. Usyk, he will fight Dubois, a man 11 years his junior, in London on July 19 and will know that Dubois has not only aged but improved since they boxed in Poland in 2023. He will also know that Dubois, at 27, is entering the same athletic prime Usyk himself has recently left. 

Similarly, Inoue will know the danger of Uzbekistan’s Murodjon Akhmadaliev, the man he is set to face on September 14 in Japan. Like Luis Nery, Akhmadaliev is a southpaw with a dangerous left hand. Not only that, he is younger than Inoue at 30, and has just 14 pro fights to his name. He won’t be backed by many to beat Inoue, granted, but he is dangerous and he is hungry and he saw Ramon Cardenas drop Inoue on Sunday night, reminding us all of the importance of timing. 

The timing of the punch. The timing of opportunity. The timing of risk. More than any other sport, boxing is all a matter of timing and every fighter who competes is aware of this. They are aware that they each have their time to shine – that one big moment – and that they then have a night when they simply run out of it. It happens to almost all of them, even the ones with perfect timing. It is sneaky, indiscriminate, and inevitable. It has no respect for either achievement or fame. It hides. It waits. 

This year it waits for at least three of the world’s best.