FIVE GLOBAL STARS OF 2026 SO FAR
We’ve picked out our top five British stars of 2026 so far, so now it’s time to go global with our top five from around the world.
First up, we’ll start with the most active of the five.
Kevin Lele Sadjo
Undefeated in his first 26 fights as a professional, with 23 stoppages from those 26 victories, the Cameroon-born French super-middleweight Kevin Lele Sadjo suffered the first defeat of his career at the end of 2025 to the highly rated Diego Pacheco.
Since then, though, the bounce-back has been admirable.
Four fights in the first seven months of the year, including two wins over previously undefeated opponents and two stoppage victories from those four wins, have shown that resilience and activity are key in this sport.
He’s worked his way back into the top 10 of the IBF, WBO and WBC rankings and currently sits 12th in the WBA rankings, so this is a man who, despite a disappointing loss last year, is right in contention for a crack at world honours over the next 12 months.
With his fan-friendly style, if Christian Mbilli gets through Canelo later this year, he could well find himself in pole position for a huge all-French world title fight, which you’d imagine would fill football stadiums across the country.
David Benavidez
Now to the world champions, and it’s no surprise that the newly crowned unified cruiserweight champion of the world features on this list.
After claiming the WBC ‘Interim’ World Super-Middleweight Title, he stepped up to light-heavyweight to fight for the same title. After winning it and then defending it, he stopped Anthony Yarde to claim the full title in his next fight.
With options limited at 175lbs, he took the plunge and stepped up another 25lbs to challenge Gilberto Ramirez for his unified WBA and WBO World Titles which, on paper, looked to be his toughest test to date.
It proved to be anything but. A relentless performance saw him become the first man to stop Ramirez with a sixth-round knockout.
It was arguably the performance of the year in a world title fight from any fighter so far this year, which is why he’s made our top five.
Jaron Ennis
Similar to Benavidez, Ennis has only fought once this year, and it came in a relatively new weight class for two world titles.
After blasting out Uisma Lima in less than a round last October, he was touted to face Vergil Ortiz Jr.
However, that fight couldn’t be made due to politics, so in stepped WBO and WBA world champion Xander Zayas in what was, on paper, a much better fight for Jaron Ennis.
As expected, he took the fight to the undefeated Puerto Rican and, despite getting hurt early on, showed true grit and determination to claim a seventh-round stoppage.
Ennis, many in the sport believe, is the pound-for-pound No. 1 right now, but he just hasn’t had the opportunities to solidify those claims.
He now looks set to face old foe Ortiz towards the end of the year and, if he manages to stop his American counterpart, it’ll be incredibly hard to keep him outside the top three in the pound-for-pound rankings.
Naoya Inoue
At the top of the tree in almost everyone’s pound-for-pound rankings is the legendary Japanese superstar Naoya Inoue.
A 2025 that saw him fight four times in the space of 12 months rubber-stamped his claim as the best fighter on the planet.
Back in May came arguably the biggest fight of his career in an all-Japanese showdown against the undefeated Junto Nakatani.
In what turned out to be a fairly close fight, as many expected, he did more than enough to win, with the judges awarding him a unanimous decision victory.
It’s not yet known who Inoue will fight next, but he has fought in December in four of the last five years. Many want it to be Bam Rodriguez, but that fight will probably take place in 2027, so he may have to face the winner of Ryosuke Nishida and Sam Goodman in their IBF final eliminator. However, that fight doesn’t have a date as of yet, so it really is hard to predict who Inoue could face before the end of the year.
Abdullah Mason
Our final global star of 2026 is the young American Abdullah Mason.
After claiming the WBO World Lightweight Title in November, he was scheduled to make his first defence against Joe Cordina.
However, visa issues forced Cordina to withdraw from the fight and, instead, on two weeks’ notice, Mason faced former sparring partner Albert Bell.
After a slow start, he dug deep late on to claim a 12th-round stoppage.
It was a real statement from Mason.
Facing a fighter of Bell’s quality on such short notice, you could make the argument that it was one of the standout performances from a world champion so far in 2026.
He has been flirting with the idea of stepping up to 10 stone, where he would be right in the mix for some mega fights. Whatever he decides to do, though, he’s well worth keeping a close eye on for the rest of the year.