By Cliff Rold
It’s been awhile and a whole lot of the landscape has changed.
Since the last update of the pound-for-pound list, four of the top ten have lost. Two lost with some debate (Roman Gonzalez and Manny Pacquiao); two lost clean as a sheet (Sergey Kovalev and Carl Frampton).
All of it made room for a new number one, Andre Ward, and lots of wiggle room below him. If one thinks, for instance, that Gonzalez lost a bad decision how far should he really fall?
Should Kovalev stay rated after a stoppage loss to Ward, particularly if one thought he deserved their first fight? Does a clearly aging Pacquiao hang around with a controversy or does the form he showed against a very average younger man count too much?
What about a Mikey Garcia, who has completed a huge return to the sport in 2017?
They’re all good questions. The answers aren’t far away.
Here’s where the list stands as we get closer to the last third of the year: https://www.boxingscene.com/forums/view.php?pg=pound
Last Update: December 27, 2016
Cliff Rold is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene, a founding member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com
