By Allan Fox: Gennady Golovkin’s controversial 12 round majority decision loss to Saul Canelo Alvarez last Saturday has resulted in him being dropped from #1 to #4 in the Ring Magazine pound-for-pound ratings.
It doesn’t appear to matter to Ring Magazine that the loss for Golovkin was a highly questionable one in the eyes of the fans. He’s been dropped just the same. Golovkin’s conqueror Canelo (50-1-2, 34 KOs) is now resting at #3. Surprisingly, Canelo didn’t get pushed to number 1.
Here are the number rankings for Ring Magazine’s:
1. Vasyl Lomachenko
2. Terence Crawford
3. Saul Canelo Alvarez
4. Gennady Golovkin
5. Oleksandr Usyk
6. Mikey Garcia
7. Naoya Inoue
8. Srisaket Sor Rungvisai
9. Errol Spence Jr.
10. Donnie Nietes
Having Canelo at number three is debatable right because his win was questionable. It’s understandable why GGG was moved down, but given the controversy surrounding hi fight with Alvarez, it might have been better if the rankings were frozen until there was a clear win a fight involving those two. Canelo didn’t do enough to rate a move up in rankings or a move down for GGG. Canelo has mostly fought thin competition during his career, and wins over Miguel Cotto, Austin Trout, Erislandy Lara and GGG were all highly controversial. The draw that Canelo was given against Golovkin last year was even more controversial than last Saturday.
It’s interesting that IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua isn’t in the top 10 despite holding three of the four titles in the division. It’s possible that the Ring voting committee were put off by Joshua and his promoter Eddie Hearn electing to veer around World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder and instead facing 39-year-old Alexander Povetkin for September 22. It appears that Joshua is going to need to beat a solid heavyweight like Wilder before he’s pushed up to the top 10 of the division.
Lomachenko still hasn’t beaten anyone great enough for him to be ranked #1 in the pound for pound ratings. Lomachenko has beaten a lot of guys that were flawed sluggers for the most part. The best win on Lomachenko’s resume is Guillermo Rigondeaux, and that fight was unquestionable an unfair match-up due to the Cuban fighter being much older and needing to move up two weight classes from super bantamweight to super featherweight without a catch-weight. That fight should have resulted in Lomachenko being moved down in the weight pound-for-pound ratings because it was won the moment the contracts were signed. Once it was clear that Rigondeaux wasn’t going to be given a catch-weight to make the fight at least somewhat fair, it was never going to be a competitive fight. It would be the situation if Lomachenko moved up two weight classes to fight Regis Prograis at 140. Lomachenko might be competitive for a round or two, but then Prograis would start landing body shots and it would end badly for the two-time Ukrainian Olympic gold medalist.