Wlad Returns, Kovalev Arrives, Ward Exits: P4P Update
Nov 28, 2014 • 7:36 AM ET
By Cliff Rold
With now a full year of inactivity and no imminent return planned, Super Middleweight Champion Andre Ward, previously second in these ratings, exits. That makes room for at least one new entrant.
This time around, we have two.
For those who made the case for year’s that US failures at the Olympics were merely a style issue, the evidence is in. That’s not what happened. While US interest and participation in the sport has diminished, the rest of the world has developed the talent.
That talent has arrived.
From Middleweight to Heavyweight, the widely perceived best fighter (if not lineal champion) in every division comes from Europe or a former Soviet State with the exception of Super Middleweight. Ward is the only US Olympic Gold medalist of the 21st century.
Gennady Golovkin (Middleweight), Sergey Kovalev (Light Heavyweight), Marco Huck (Cruiserweight), and Wladimir Klitschko (Ukraine) represent a seismic global talent shift. Two of them, Kovalev newly and Klitschko as a return, enter the top ten.
While he’s not quite there yet, Ukraine’s Vasyl Lomachenko could make his case at Featherweight as 2015 develops. Golovkin is a big win or two away from arriving and is already considered a big pound-for-pound player by some.
Klitschko’s awesome win over Kubrat Pulev pushes Danny Garcia out of the top ten. Kovalev arrives a slot ahead of unified Flyweight titlist Juan Francisco Estrada. Manny Pacquiao, off the total strength of his 2014 campaign, gets a slot bump while the top two remain unchanged.
Will we see the long awaited Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather and much anticipated Roman Gonzalez-Estrada rematch in the next year? If so, there could be even more changes coming to this top ten.
Last Update: September 15, 2014
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
