by Cliff Rold
Heavyweight: Tyson Fury solved the riddle of Wladimir Klitschko, outboxing the long reigning champion and ending Klitschko’s hopes of reaching Joe Louis’s record for consecutive title defenses. Klitschko slips to the top contender slot and everyone else falls by one.
Light Heavyweight: Eleider Alvarez gets a bump in the ratings with a solid, if not scintillating, win over Isaac Chilemba.
Super Middleweight: Lucian Bute lost but his performance was enough to get him back into the top ten, giving James DeGale a hell of a scrap. Callum Smith exits the ratings to make room.
Middleweight: Saul Alvarez ascends to the top spot, winning the historical Middleweight crown from Miguel Cotto. The countdown has begun for what many hope will be a 2016 showdown with unified titlist Gennady Golovkin. Cotto slips in the ratings and could be removed when he formally returns to the lower weight divisions where he belongs. Alvarez’s displacement pushes Tureano Johnson out of the top ten.
Jr. Middleweight: Unless Alvarez relinquishes his title at 160 lbs., there is no need to keep him rated a class below for now. Erislandy Lara moves into the top spot and Michael Soro enters the top ten.
Lightweight: Anthony Crolla enters the top ten after a rousing knockout of Darleys Perez.
Jr. Lightweight: 130 lbs. got its third Fight of the Year candidate in 2015 and Francisco Vargas picked up a title in an absolute war with Takashi Miura. Miura has played second fiddle to Takashi Uchiyama in Japan and it’s long past time Uchiyama share his talents with the globe as well. Vargas moves up to the number two slot right behind Uchiyama. Miura slips only a little.
Jr. Featherweight: Guillermo Rigondeaux gets credit for a successful title defense. While no alphabet title was on the line, he competed at weight and remains the true champion of the division. He’ll need more than that to coax the winner of Carl Frampton-Scott Quigg into the ring for what would be then a showdown of the best in class.
Bantamweight: Randy Caballero missed weight for his fight with Lee Haskins by two divisions and is dropped from the top ten. Everyone below him moves up a spot and Shohei Omori enters the top ten.
Jr. Flyweight: Pedro Guevara takes a tumble after losing to unheralded Yu Kimura who enters the ratings strong after the gutsy upset.
The full results of note and the total impact on the ratings are a click away.
Last ratings update: October 22, 2015
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
