Mayweather #1, Marquez #2, Pacquiao #3 in Pound-4-Pound rankings?

By Boxing News - 11/16/2011 - Comments

By Chris Williams: You can make a good argument that the pound for pound rankings need to be adjusted after last Saturday night’s bout between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez. Currently, Pacquiao is ranked #1, Mayweather #2 and Marquez at #5 in The Ring Pound for pound rankings. Marquez has now proven that he’s better than Paquiao in their three fights, and you can no longer have Pacquiao ranked ahead of Marquez after last Saturday’s fight.

However, after Marquez got the better of Pacquiao and badly exposed him in front of the boxing world, I think the ratings need to be adjusted accordingly with the new following rankings: Mayweather #1, Marquez #2, Pacquiao #3. I’m sorry but you can’t keep Pacquiao at number #1 after he got what many boxing fans saw as a gift decision over Marquez.

It’s not good for the sport to keep dead weight at the top of the rankings when it’s so painfully obvious that Mayweather would beat the starch out of Pacquiao, and Marquez already just finished doing it. We can’t have a fighters kept at the top when they’re clearly not cutting the mustard anymore. Pacquiao has done well against the old and weight drained guys that his promoter Bob Arum has fed to him the last three years, but you knew Pacquiao wasn’t as good as Arum made him look with the careful matchmaking.

We’ve now seen Pacquiao exposed by Marquez once again. You can ignore the results of the judges’ decisions because they’re clearly out of touch with what the mainstream boxing fans feel about this fight. As such, I think Pacquiao needs to be demoted to the number #3 spot for the time being. And depending on how well or poorly he fights in 2012, he could get dropped down even further.

If Pacquiao gets another gift decision over Marquez in their likely rematch in 2012, you have can make an argument that Pacquiao should be dropped down even further in the rankings. Being kept at the top artificially by controversial decisions isn’t the same as showing that you’ve got the real talent to dominate the best. Gift decisions that run counter to what the boxing public feels should be ruled as a loss or a near loss when putting together the pound for pound rankings.



Comments are closed.