By Cliff Rold

No one ever asks, literally, who would win a fight between Jr. Bantamweight champion Vic Darchinyan and Middleweight Champion Sergio Martinez.  Little time is spent wondering if Manny Pacquiao could overcome a foot and more of height difference, not to mention about 100 pounds, to topple one of the Heavyweight Klitschko brothers.

Those thoughts are not wasted in a literal sense because, for lack of a better word, they’re silly.  So, too often, is the place where such matches can take place.

Partly because it’s fun, largely because it always draws a raucous debate, and not so secretly because it’s a quick way to opine on the whole of the sport without always having to be fully familiar with most of what goes on in all of the seventeen weight classes, pound for pound debates have been given an unnatural significance in the modern era.

Once a year, it’s worth remembering what the bulk of boxing really rotates around.  The real action takes place where it always has.  It takes place in those seventeen weight classes from Strawweight (105 lbs.) to Heavyweight (everything over 200 lbs.).  As noted in the 2009 “Champ for Champ” analysis:     

Inside the confines of those classes, we find champions.  The numbers vary.  Usually in the old days, there was one man up top.  In this day there can be four or more depending on how many interim (ad nausea) type belts the likes of the WBC or WBA felt like charging for in a given week.  This calculus doesn’t include lineal or Ring Magazine championship distinctions which can further clarify, or cloud, a field.  Obviously, the concept of a World Champion is significantly watered down.  It doesn’t mean there are not fighters who exemplify the label…

 

A champion isn’t just a guy who holds a belt.  A real champion is a fighter who holds his crown for a while, matching at least semi-regularly with real top ten contenders, and leaving the ring still buckling the strap around his waist. 

The first time this was trotted out in 2008, the focus was limited to lineal World Champions.  That universe doesn’t encompass enough of the championship picture and in 2009 it was opened up to the ten fighters who exemplified best what it means to be a champion.  The same rules apply this time around.

The 2009 listing was:

10) Kelly Pavlik – World Middleweight – 2 Defenses

9) Edgar Sosa - WBC Jr. Flyweight – 9 Defenses

8) Omar Narvaez – WBO Flyweight – 16 Defenses

7) Timothy Bradley – WBO Jr. Welterweight – 1 Defense

6) Chris John – WBA Featherweight – 11 Defenses

5) Vic Darchinyan – World Jr. Bantamweight – 1 Defense

4) Hozumi Hasegawa – WBC Bantamweight – 9 Defenses

3) Juan Manuel Marquez – World Lightweight – 1 Defense

2) Miguel Cotto – WBO Welterweight – 1 Defense

1) Wladimir Klitschko – World Heavyweight

Of these men, Pavlik, Sosa, Hasegawa, and Cotto all lost their respective titles.  Cotto has since won a new belt at Jr. Middleweight but misses the cut along with the defeated.  Narvaez vacated his belt and is establishing himself on new ground at 115 lbs.  Without a serious challenge there to date, he also exits.  Who among the remaining stays in 2010?  What new names join the fray?

This is Champ for Champ 2010.

10) Marco Huck – WBO Cruiserweight – 3 Defenses

Little known outside Germany, Huck (29-1, 22 KO) is proof that sometimes a fighter’s best emerges after defeat.  In 2007, Huck fell short in a bid for a Cruiserweight belt against Steve Cunningham only to bounce back with ten straight wins.  The last four have come in title affairs.  After stopping undefeated Geoffrey Battelo and Vitaliy Russal to earn a title shot, Huck cruised to an August 2009 decision over Victor Ramirez.  He has defended three times already with a fourth defense scheduled for this Saturday.  Brian Minto and Adam Richards weren’t overwhelming foes, but Ola Afolabi was coming off a win over former WBO titlist Enzo Maccirinelli.  This weekend’s challenger, Matt Godfrey, is a legitimate top ten face at 200 lbs. who enters with four straight wins after a close, single decision loss in 2008.  Win here and Huck can begin to think about revenge on Cunningham and go from just acting like a champion should to seeing whether he is ready to just be the champion, period, at Cruiserweight.

9) Vic Darchinyan – World Jr. Bantamweight – 2 Defense; WBC/WBA – 3 Defenses

Darchinyan (35-2-1, 27 KO) returned to Jr. Bantamweight after a failed attempt at then-reigning Joseph Agbeko’s IBF Bantamweight belt in July 2009, notching two more defenses of the crown in a division he seized by the throat in a career defining 2008 campaign.  While forced to give up the IBF belt, Darchinyan continues as the man at 115 lbs. and remains a fighting champion in his second weight class.  It’s one thing to win titles, another to defend them.  Darchinyan has shown capable of both, notching six defenses as a Flyweight titlist previously, and it is this ingredient that marks the test of a champion.  His defenses in the last year, against Tomas Villa and the gritty Rodrigo Guerrero, were not of the elite quality of his unification win over Cristian Mijares.  However, he gets praise for trying to make a rematch with his first conqueror, Nonito Donaire, even if business impediments on the other side got in the way.  Darchinyan is likely to be a permanent member of the Bantamweight class by the end of the year; his last fight was at 118 lbs.  For now, he retains merit as the king of the Jr. Bantams.

8) Chris John – WBA Featherweight – 12 Defenses

Indonesia’s John (43-0-2, 22 KO) has fought only once since the last listing and drops a few slots.  His rematch win over Rocky Juarez was impressive in its efficiency for all but the final round but, at 30, the slickster is struggling with injuries and postponements.  It’s not enough to take away from what has been an exemplary run at 126 lbs.  While it would have been nice to see some unification by now, and it’s sort of sad to watch the division moving on without him in the form of young rising stars Yuriorkis Gamboa and Juan Manuel Lopez, John’s narrow (if controversial) win over Juan Manuel Marquez in 2006 and place near the top of class since 2003 make him impossible to overlook.  No matter how good the young, it is still John who is the standard for Featherweight and no one can be called the best without going through him first.

7) Vitali Klitschko – WBC Heavyweight – 4 Defenses

The heavyweight division is a two-headed sibling monster made up of what is and what might have been.  One will never know what Vitali (40-2, 38 KO) might have achieved with a fully healthy body in the middle of the 00’s.  It’s a shame.  What he has done since returning from a near four year layoff in 2008 is remarkable enough.  In four bouts, he bested Sam Peter for a belt and followed by belting contenders Juan Carlos Gomez, Chris Arreola, and Kevin Johnson around the ring.  While only Gomez had ever posted a win over a serious contender to earn his crack, it’s worth noting Vitali has yet to lose a round in his return.  Big brother Klitschko would rate even higher had his last defense not come against Albert Sosnowski, to be followed by well faded (if former lineal Champion) Shannon Briggs.  Heavyweight can’t really be this bad can it?    

6) Timothy Bradley – WBO Jr. Welterweight – 1 Defense

Bradley (26-0, 11 KO) posted only a single start at Jr. Welterweight since last year’s review.  That once was impressive, a rousing decision over undefeated and talented Lamont Peterson.  There’s no shame in dipping a foot in the richer Welterweight waters when a defense against top ten banger Marcos Maidana imploded on the Maidana side; Bradley was up for taking his challenge.  All signs point to a unification showdown with Devon Alexander early next year and Bradley already has a unification win in his past (over Kendall Holt).  He is the leader of the deepest division in boxing in terms of youth and talent and very close to emerging as its decisive king.  The willingness to fight just about anyone has brought him to that verge.

5) Anselmo Moreno – WBA Bantamweight – 7 Defenses

The first of two Bantamweights on the list, it might seem silly for two men to exemplify championship qualities in the same class.  Boxing sometimes allows for such strange developments.  Panama’s Moreno (30-1-1, 10 KO) is a slickster of the polarizing type, infinitely watchable for some viewers and a bit too nuanced to thrill others.  Regardless of the camp one falls into, Moreno is willing to play on the ‘world’ part of being a world champion.  He went on the road to defeat and defend against the skilled (and undefeated prior to Moreno) German-based Wladimir Sidorenko.  Two defenses in France, and another in Venezuela, can be found in his reign to date with quality contender Nehomar Cermeno a decision victim twice and former 122 lb. titlist Mahyar Monshipur bested on his own turf.  Add in this: Moreno’s draw and split verdict loss both came in the four-round phase of his career, verdicts which could have by a point been wins.  A case can be made that Moreno has never really been bested in the ring and, making his bones in what might be the game’s best weight class right now, that’s saying something.  

4) Ivan Calderon – World/WBO Jr. Flyweight – 6 Defenses

Calderon (34-0-1, 6 KO) seemed to hit a wall last year and he missed the cut.  The ongoing and active reign of Edgar Sosa was more impressive at the time.  Sosa has since lost and Calderon’s fortunes have looked up.  Calderon’s two cut shortened defenses against Rodel Mayol turned out to be more impressive after the fact as Mayol would win and lose a belt at 108 lbs.  There is also the matter of what is to come.  After some criticism about the level of foe he hasn’t been facing since a rematch win over Hugo Cazares, he has accepted a fight with the number one threat in his class, WBA titlist Giovanni Segura, set for August 28th.  Combine that with the fact that, across both 105 and 108 lbs., Calderon has competed in title affairs in 18 of his last 19 outings.  More unification might have seen him rate higher; what he’s done is champion enough.

3) Juan Manuel Marquez – World Lightweight – 2 Defenses; WBA/WBO – 1 Defense

The future Hall of Famer Marquez (51-5-1, 37 KO) had only one defense since last year but that was a product of ill-fated challenge.  A move to Welterweight to face a Floyd Mayweather who blew off a contracted catch weight turned out a bridge too far.  Mexico’s Marquez returned to class after a layoff and against the right man.  Moving to Lightweight in 2008, Marquez became the first man to stop Joel Casamayor for the crown and then added a first-time knockout of leading contender Juan Diaz.  Diaz, like Marquez, struggled higher on the scale between their two fights but, with the suicide of the despicable Edwin Valero, stayed as the leading contender at Lightweight.  Marquez gave him the rematch a “Fight of the Year” encounter merits and won even easier the second time around despite the fight going the route.  Marquez would rate a little higher with more activity in this class but gets point for being a fighting champion type at Featherweight and Jr. Lightweight before 135 lbs. became his domain.  Another move up the scale could be next; if not, Michael Katsidis deserves his shots at the legend.  Either way, Marquez should be expected to remain an example of how it should be done with a strap on the line.

2) Fernando Montiel – WBC Bantamweight – 1 Defense; WBO – 2 Defenses

Mexico’s Montiel (43-2-2, 33 KO) added punctuation to his career with a fourth round knockout of red hot Hozumi Hasegawa in April to unify belts and emerge as the leader at Bantamweight.  That he did Hasegawa on the road, in Japan, bolded the punctuation.  He’s defended once since with more to come.  A WBO titlist at Flyweight, twice at Jr. Bantamweight, and now a unified titlist at Bantamweight, Montiel has always been a fighting champion.  Of his two losses, one came to a superb veteran talent in Mark Johnson and the other came against a then streaking Jhonny Gonzalez in his first try at 118 lbs.  Over his career, Montiel has posted a mark of 18-2 in title fights with a who’s who of the best of the lower weight classes dotting his record.  By year’s end, faded but still capable Cristian Mijares and super talented Nonito Donaire may add to his challenger’s docket.  It’s the sort of slate which should be expected of a championship level fighter.

1) Wladimir Klitschko – World Heavyweight – 1 Defense; 4 – IBF; 4 – IBF/WBO

Another year goes by but this slot remains the same.  With eight total defenses of the titles he began collecting with amassing with a 2006 knockout of Chris Byrd, Klitschko (54-3, 48 KO) has been so many of the things one would ask of a Heavyweight king.  He’s a class act outside the ring, his involvement with UNICEF among other humanitarian accomplishments.  There is never a whiff of scandal.  While he has never become a major star in the U.S., he’s a stadium draw in Germany and it’s not like he hasn’t drawn some crowds at the Garden.  The only things which can be held against him are some bad losses prior to his current eleven-fight win streak and that’s he not that exciting, even perceived as timid sometimes.  These items can make his qualities in pound for pound terms debatable.  His qualities as the literal best fighter in the world are not. 

Short of a fight with his brother which has not, and should not ever, come, Klitschko has cleaned out the bulk of the class by beating the most qualified contenders.  He unified easily against Sultan Ibragimov to add the WBO belt.  He walked through the undefeated WBA titlist Ruslan Chagaev even if he wasn’t able to win that belt for political reasons.  He pancaked top contender Eddie Chambers earlier this year.  He’s not ducking anyone.  One could even argue some of his top contenders are ducking him.

David Haye, Tomasz Adamek and Alexander Povetkin are his leading contenders right now.  Adamek may pursue what is now a WBO mandatory and no duck applies.  Haye claimed an injury and walked away from a fight with Klitschko last year and has gone from trash talk to no talk in 2010.  Povetkin may yet emerge ready but wisely, under a new trainer, has elected to try to improve his game before he takes a shot, opting out of mandatories twice in the last couple years.  A rematch defense against previous decision victim Sam Peter in September is not high on anyone’s list of must-see action but when the presumed top contenders aren’t available, a champion can only fight on.  Klitschko is doing that.

Weekly Ledger

But wait, there’s more…

 

Arreola Snacks on Quezada: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=30057

Moreno Over Cermeno: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=30085

Weekend Report Cards: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=30100

Ratings Update: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=30107

Picks of the Week: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=29982

Cliff’s Notes…Don’t forget to look out for BoxingScene’s updated pound-for-pound list in the wake of Chad Dawson’s loss to Jean Pascal in the next couple days...No one said this scribe is above this sort of thing.…Next week, Calderon-Segura. 

Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel, the Yahoo Pound for Pound voting panel, and the Boxing Writers Association of America.  He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com