By Jason Kim: WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Andre Ward’s impressive 10th round TKO of Chad Dawson this month has catapulted the 28-year-old Ward to the number 3 spot in the Ring Magazine’s pound for pound rankings, and thus replacing the previous number 3, Sergio Martinez. It’s a controversial move, of course, because Sergio Martinez is coming off of a mostly dominating performance against WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on September 15th of this month in a fight where Martinez won by a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision.

It seems that Ward’s victory over Dawson, who is considered to be the best fighter in the light heavyweight division, holds a lot more water than Martinez’s victory over Chavez Jr. But should it? Martinez faced a fighter in Chavez Jr. who was a lot bigger and younger than him, and did an admirable job despite giving away a lot of weight.

In contrast, Ward fought Dawson, who had to come down from 175 and fight Ward without the benefit of a catchweight. We’ve heard the argument already that it wasn’t Ward’s fault that Dawson ended up weight drained and too weak to fight, and that it was on him for doing it. But it still kind of takes away from what Ward accomplished or it should take some of the shine away. It’s not as if Ward moved up to 175 and fought Dawson while he was at fulls strength and not looking thin and lethargic from having taken off too much weight.

What may have hurt Martinez’s chances at staying at #2 was him getting knocked down and badly hurt by Chavez Jr. in the 12th round. Martinez paid a price for standing in front of Chavez Jr. in the 12th round and trying to slug it out with him when Chavez Jr. was desperate and in need of a knockout to win. It was bad because it left boxing fans with the impression that Chavez Jr. could have beaten Martinez had he started earlier with his offense. We’ll never really know, and all we can go by is what actually happened in the fight. And what happened was that Martinez badly dominated Chavez Jr. for the first 11 rounds before getting caught with a big hail mary right hand from Chavez Jr. in the 12th.

With Ward being pushed to the number #3 spot in the pound for pound rankings, he now trails Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr, who are both tied at #2. The top #1 spot is still vacant as of now. With both Mayweather and Pacquiao showing signs of losing their skills, we could see Ward as the top guy in the sport within two years time. It should be a lot faster than that but I think the Ring pound for pound ratings are slow in removing old fighters that are no longer at their top of their game. We’ve seen that with the Ring rating Toshiaki Nishioka as still the best super bantamweight despite Nonito Donaire, Abner Mares and Guillermo Rigondeaux looking a lot better, and we’ve also seen it was Bernard Hopkins having held the top stop at light heavyweight even after it was pretty clear that Chad Dawson was the top guy in the division.