Michael Magnesi hasn’t fought in 10 months – and yet the 31-year-old from Italy now sits at No. 1 in the WBC’s junior lightweight rankings.

Magnesi, 25-2 (13 KOs), was positioned at No. 2 as of December 2025, in-between Mark Magsayo at No. 1 and Raymond Ford at No. 3. 

None of those men has fought since then. The WBC’s latest ratings update – released on February 3 – shuffled the order up anyway. Magnesi is now in the top spot, followed by Ford and then Magsayo.

Magnesi and Magsayo were previously ordered to meet in a title eliminator. The most recent update now positions Magnesi to get a title shot before Magsayo.

The WBC’s junior lightweight titleholder is O’Shaquie Foster.

Prior to his second defeat, Magnesi was rated sixth by the WBC at 135lbs. He was ahead on the scorecards going into the 12th round before getting stopped by fifth-ranked Masanori Rikiishi in March 2024.

Afterward, Magnesi dropped down to 10th.

But as often happens with the sanctioning bodies, fighters can move up without doing anything just by virtue of attrition – when other fighters lose, challenge for world titles with other sanctioning bodies, or head into different weight classes. Or they can move up or down just based on the opaque decisions of these organizations.

Magnesi went to ninth in May 2024 and eighth in July 2024. In October 2024, Magnesi outpointed an opponent whose record was 15-20-3. By December 2024, Magnesi was ranked sixth. 

He was back down to seventh in February 2025. In March 2025, Magnesi won a unanimous decision over the sixth-ranked 20-2 Khalil El Hadri. And so in April, Magnesi sat in the fifth spot. 

That was Magnesi’s last fight. Still, Magnesi moved to third last May and second in August, where he remained. Until now.

After Magnesi, Ford and Magsayo in the rankings comes Ryan Garner at No. 4, followed by El Hadri, Andres Cortes, Moussa Gholam, Muhammadkhuja Yaqubov, Robson Conceicao, Gary Russell Jnr, Charly Suarez, Oscar Valdez, Yamato Hata, Kenichi Ogawa and Josh Padley.

David Greisman, who has covered boxing since 2004, is on Twitter @FightingWords2. David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” is available on Amazon.