Method

1. 1Collect

   A robot reads the five rankings in their original format: an API (IBF), PDFs (WBA, WBO), one page per division (WBC), an image (IBO).

2. 2Check

   A reading that no longer looks like the previous one (unreadable names, missing positions) is refused: the site keeps the earlier version.

3. 3Link

   One boxer, five spellings: every spelling leads to a single profile. Wikidata and Wikimedia add the identity and the free photos.

4. 4Publish

   Rankings, tier list, pound for pound and the composite ladder are recomputed, then put online.

The sanctioning bodies usually publish once a month. The robot comes by every day and runs a full collection every Wednesday; a reading is archived only if it changes something.

If they differ, the sanctioning body's publication prevails. Each ranking's date is also shown on its division page.

Headers with a dotted underline explain themselves on hover (or with a tap on a phone). The same definitions, gathered here:

Rank

The boxer's place in the sanctioning body's official ranking. “C”: world champion, above No. 1. An interim champion is marked as such (“Interim”, “Int.”): not the reigning champion. No. 1 is the leading contender for the title.

Change

Places gained (▲, in green) or lost (▼, in red) since the ranking published a month ago (1M), three months ago (3M), six months ago (6M) or a year ago (1Y). “New”: not ranked back then. A dot: no archive old enough to compare yet.

Trend

The average change across every sanctioning body that ranks the boxer, over the chosen period. ▲ 1.5: a place and a half gained on average; a dash: no movement.

Avg.

The boxer's average rank across the bodies that rank them: a world title counts as 0, an interim title or No. 1 as 1, and so on. The lower the number, the better the ranking. Example: No. 2 with the WBC and No. 4 with the IBF give 3.0.

Bodies

How many sanctioning bodies rank the boxer, out of those that rank this division (3/5: three out of five). The more there are, the sturdier the average; when it rests on a single one, it is greyed out.

Spread

The gap between the boxer's best and worst rank. 0: every body agrees. In red from 6: they clearly disagree (No. 1 with one, No. 9 with another).

Composite ladder

A ranking no sanctioning body publishes: boxers sorted by average rank, then, when tied, by how many bodies rank them.

Status

Undisputed: all four major belts (WBC, WBA, WBO, IBF) on the same head. Unified: at least two. Interim: a stopgap title, until the reigning champion (injured, inactive) returns or a fight settles it. Vacant: no champion right now.

Why an average? Each sanctioning body ranks in its own way: a boxer at No. 2 with one can be No. 9 with another. The average says where they stand overall, the spread says whether the bodies agree about them, and the number of bodies says how many opinions it rests on.

Every ranked boxer in a weight class is placed in a tier, based on their positions in the five official rankings. The rules are fixed and applied as they stand, with no personal opinion: the tier list changes when the rankings change.

S

World champions. Holds a WBC, WBA, WBO or IBF world title — unified champions first.

A

Elite. Interim champion, No. 1 or No. 2 with a major body, or top 5 with two majors.

B

Contenders. Top 10 with a major body, or IBO champion.

C

Ranked. Ranked by at least one major body.

D

IBO ranked. Ranked by the IBO only.

The “major sanctioning bodies” are the WBC, WBA, WBO and IBF; the IBO, newer and less closely followed, counts separately. Within a tier, boxers are sorted from best to least well ranked. “Former world champion” marks a past holder of a major belt.

Pound for pound compares boxers across weight classes. Here it is not an opinion but a computed score, the same for everyone, each term readable on the tier list page. Two lists, men and women, each with its own constants.

Who is scored

The champions of the four majors, their No. 1s, and the top 3 of every division at TBRB and The Ring.

Over what period

24 months in full, then a weight that fades to zero at 36 months.

Published if

The computation finds at least 6 of the 10 names of TBRB and The Ring (median since 2016, men).

The calculation, rule by rule

1. 1
   The window. Fights from the last 24 months count in full; between 24 and 36 months their weight fades to zero. What a boxer did before lives in their reigns, not their fights.
2. 2
   What a win is worth. A floor (0.25), plus what the opponent was worth on the night: champion, unified or undisputed; lineal champion (The Ring, TBRB); their rank in the last list published before the fight, if it is under 90 days old (the first source with a list decides: TBRB, then The Ring, the IBF, the WBC — for women, The Ring first); their record before the fight; their form over their three previous fights when their career has been read. All multiplied by the method (KO and TKO 1, retirement 0.95, unanimous decision 0.85, split 0.6, disqualification 0.5), by the rematch fraction (a second win over the same opponent is worth half, a third a quarter), and by the weight-class differential (±8% per step, capped at two: beating a bigger man is worth more).
3. 3
   What a loss costs. From 2 against a nobody to 0.3 against an undisputed champion, weighted by the method (a knockout costs more than a split decision). A loss avenged since counts at half. A draw is neither a win nor a loss; against a champion it earns a small credit.
4. 4
   The multipliers. The boxer's own belts on the date (champion ×1.1, unified ×1.2, undisputed ×1.3), their world reigns, the divisions they have conquered, their defences; “undefeated” is worth almost nothing (×1.02): losses already cost.
5. 5
   The retroactive bonus. If a beaten opponent later becomes champion, the win gains value — from their reigns, never from their own score: nobody rises because someone else rises because they rise.
6. 6
   What makes a champion. A WBC, WBO, IBF or WBA “super” belt — the WBA “regular” only counts when there is no super champion in the division on that date. Interim, franchise, silver, IBO: never. Unified: two majors in the same division; undisputed: all four.
7. 7
   Leaving the ranking. 12 months without a fight or a scheduled fight, or a retirement noted by the team. A boxer whose record has not been read is not scored: nothing is approximated.

What the score knows, and doesn't. Champion status on any date is known (lists of champions, complete since the 1990s). Rank on the night depends on what the sources published — the breakdown says “unknown” when no list existed within 90 days. For women before 2020, the main signal is therefore “champion on the night”, not rank.

TBRB

men: monthly since Nov 2012 · women: since 2025“true” champion and top 10 per division; P4P

The Ring

men: 2016 → 2024 (archived captures) · women: 2020 → 2024, intermittentlychampion, top 10 (men) or top 5 (women); P4P

IBF

men: monthly since Dec 2005 · women: since Apr 2011champion and top 15

WBC

men: 2015 → today · women: 2015 → today, with gapschampion and top 40, archived monthly PDFs

WBA, WBO

no published history“unknown” before our own captures (August 2026)

Validation. Before publication, the computation is replayed at every date on which The Ring and TBRB published their P4P since 2013 and compared with theirs: top-10 overlap and rank correlation, year by year. It is published only if the median overlap since 2016 reaches 6 out of 10 for men. It does: 6 out of 10. The report lives in the repository, with the version of the constants it measured.

The stars. The raw score is a number without a unit; it is read on five stars, in half steps, with two anchors taken from the computation's own history (one top 10 per quarter since 2016): one star is worth 5.3 points for men (2.4 for women), what an ordinary No. 10 is worth; five stars are worth 11.7 (8.2), which three No. 1s out of four never reached. A two-star No. 1 is the No. 1 of a thin year; the raw score stays in the breakdown.

On each profile, the “World titles” section brings two sources together, each in its own role.

• Reigning: the sanctioning bodies' official rankings, as everywhere on the site. Every champion in a ranking has their title on their profile, dated when the day it was won is known.
• History and dates: Wikipedia's lists of world champions (CC BY-SA 4.0 licence), re-read every week. A reign is attached to a profile only if it can mean no one else: same gender, a neighbouring weight class, a plausible age. When in doubt, no title rather than a title credited to the wrong boxer.
• When the two disagree, the most recent date wins. A reign Wikipedia calls “ongoing” but that a later ranking contradicts becomes end date unknown; a title won after the latest ranking is shown according to Wikipedia.

The trajectory, below the movement table, plots the boxer's rank with each sanctioning body across the archived rankings — one band per body, each on its own scale, with a gold line marking the title. A gap means the body published its ranking without them.

The calendar brings together fights announced by the WBC and picked up from BoxRec, plus those added by the team. It can be filtered by gender, weight class and sanctioning body; headliners are fights featuring a world champion, or two highly ranked boxers.

Each fight carries labels, all in the same format:

Unification

Two world champions from different major sanctioning bodies, in the same weight class. “Champion vs champion”: two champions from different weight classes. “Champion”: a reigning champion steps into the ring.

Rematch

The two boxers have met before; “immediate” when the first fight was less than a year ago. “Trilogy” for the third fight, then “4th fight”… The card recounts their last fight and gives the head-to-head record.

Disputed

Their last fight ended in a draw, a split decision (the judges divided), a majority decision, or a no contest.

Stakes

Interim, vacant title, eliminator (the winner becomes the official challenger), Silver (the WBC's secondary belt), mandatory or voluntary defence.

Rematches are drawn from the boxers' records on Wikipedia, re-read every week. Two different articles mean two different people: a namesake never creates a false rematch. A boxer without an article has no known record; the team can then flag the rematch by hand.