By James P Sexton: On January 5th ESPN tweeted out a link to their newly updated pound for pound rankings. Several positions will not produce any surprise such as Floyd Mayweather Jr remaining at the top as number 1, however several of the other choices may receive some criticism after a close analysis of the fighters recent performances.
Manny Pacquiao was listed at number 2 and whilst I personally would not have him here, its a solid pick and cannot really be questioned. The questionable picks start from the number 3 slot. Juan Manuel Marquez is listed as being the third best fighter in the entire sport and that seems strange to me seeing as he is a 41 year old man who’s last win came over a limited second-tier fighter in Mike Alvarado. Alvarado himself was coming off a stoppage loss when he fought Marquez and that fighter (Provodnikov) was coming off a loss when he fought Alvarado. This line of fights makes for a less than impressive win for Marquez who had to come up off the canvas at one point. It seems to me that the KO win over Pacman back in 2012 has the writers over at ESPN overly impressed with Marquez as he hasn’t done anything particularly impressive since. He was even rocked by Bradley in his decision loss to him in 2013, despite Bradley not being known as anything like a puncher.
This is by no means an attack on Marquez as he is a truly great fighter and his career has been enjoyed some fantastic moments over the years, however it is strange to think that people would rate him as a ‘better’ fighter than guys like Guillermo Rigondeaux, Wladimir Klitschko and Gennady Golovkin who have been nothing short of dominant in their recent performances. They have even rated him above Timothy Bradley who beat him just a year ago!
Rigondeaux himself has been moved to the 4th spot – a good position for him. Timothy Bradley comes in at 5 despite going 0 – 1 – 1 during 2014. A loss to Pacquiao followed by probably the most dissapointing result of his career in a draw with the tough but limited Diego Chavez. This is the guy who was blasted out by Keith Thurman and ended up losing a fight to the second tier Brandon Rios, but still managed to pull out a draw against the ‘5th best’ fighter in the world in Bradley. Again this isn’t me bashing Bradley as a fighter. I have said before that I like him, it is just difficult to see how he can be rated as the fifth best fighter on the planet when he has not even won a fight since 2013.
Gennady Golovkin fails to break into the top five despite being totally dominant and having a 13-0 (13KO) record in world title fights. That record was built on during this year when he went 3-0 (3KOs) against Osumanu Adama, Daniel Geale and Marco Antonio Rubio – hardly world beaters, but each was a tough competitor, and each was made to look awful in being blasted out very quickly. Very difficult to see Marquez or Bradley being better than this man.
Roman Gonzalez was listed at 7. Kovalev at 9 and Froch at 10. All very logical picks and almost exactly identical to my own pound for pound list.
My last complaint comes when Wladimir Klitscko is listed as the 8th best fighter in the world. This is the man who has dominated his division for more than a decade, taking on all comers and overcoming them. There simply is no excuse for writers on the sport of boxing to list this historic champion anywhere outside the top 5. 420 – 22 – 8 is the combined record of Klitschko’s last 14 opponents and this is simply not comparable to the majority of fighters out there today or in any weight class/era in the history of the sport. I guess a loss and a draw or a win over Mike Alvarado is more impressive than back to back 5th round knockouts of Alex Leapai and Kubrat Pulev.
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