by Bob Smith: Though Ring magazine is a respectable if not venerable boxing publication, there are two ways in which its pound for pound list can inaccurately report the best boxers – one is by being susceptible to the favorites of boxing promoters and hype; the other is by overemphasizing recent wins, especially by knockout.
For instance, IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko jumped from #9 to #4 just because he defeated a badly overmatched challenger in Francesco Pianeta. Also, WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner is still untested yet is ranked ahead of Sergio Martinez on the list. I will present my own list here to correct for these errors.
The first four rankings are accurate – Floyd Mayweather Jr, Andre Ward, Juan Manuel Marquez, and Klitschko, but Klitschko should have been ranked this high months ago. I am quite happy that WBC featherweight champion Abner Mares is ranked #5 – he had a very impressive win against Ponce de Leon, taking the title and coming up in weight class, and he is a true champion and it is good that he is getting the recognition he deserves.
But it is after the first five that my list differs greatly. Manny Pacquiao is a great champion – in my opinion the Tim Bradley fight was outright robbery, and Bradley was lucky to survive his bout with Ruslan Provodnikov – consequently Pacquiao is underrated and Bradley overrated. Pacquiao did get knocked out by Marquez, but was winning the fight until that point and has defeated Marquez three times before and did knock him down that fight also.
But more curious is the absence of WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin and the presence of WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (see the first reason for ratings errors). Canelo barely won at best or likely lost his fight against Trout and that was after rehydrating to a weight 15 pounds or more greater than Trout. The Texas judges and the open scoring system put pressure on Trout and that and his 15 pound weight advantage were the major reason for the knockdown that his fans cling to.
By contrast, Golovkin has had 13 straight victories by knockout, including against quality competition, and is still not on the list.
The last five names on the list should read as follows: Pacquiao, Sergio Martinez, Golovkin, Broner, Nonito Donaire. Donaire did lose to Rigondeaux but that was only one loss and Rigondeaux is a very, very special fighter.
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