Comments Thread For: Andre Ward: Rigondeaux is Pound-for-Pound Number One

[-Kev-]

"Surprisingly, Ward's top five does not include middleweight king Gennady Golovkin, eight division champion Manny Pacquiao or super flyweight sensation Roman Roman "Chocolatito" Gonzalez"

Not sure what is so surprising of this. The Ring doesn't have Pac in their top 10. TBRB has GGG at #7. So it's not surprising if an individual doesn't have either fighter in their top 5 when the two top professional publications have one or the other lower than top 5 or not even considering them for the top 10.

[Mike D]

Very odd choice for #1. Nobody's arguing that Rigo isn't a phenomenally skilled fighter, but can anyone name one of his four opponents since the Agbeko fight?

No? I'll do it for you:

James ****ens
Drian Francisco
Hisashi Amagasa
Anusorn Yotjan

[Boxing Logic]

Lol Ward is playing fake humble again. He has been whining the whole last year that he should be #1. His trainer even pulled out the Kovalev fight poster for a reporter and pointed to where it said it was "pound for pound" and that was supposed to go to the winner. But now when he's asked, he pretends he hasn't been saying he should be #1 for the last year. Fake.

It's also fake that Ward has said in interviews that his fight with Kovalev could have gone either way, but he doesn't include Kovalev in the top 5. So we know Ward thinks he deserves to be #1 P4P from other interviews, but apparently the guy who even Ward admits fought him even doesn't deserve to be in the conversation.

Just seems fake. Also putting Canelo at 3 and Thurman at 5 seems to be just another scheme of Ward to ultimately lobby for himself. No one has Canelo or Thurman that high on eye test, but Ward is putting them there as a scheme to say "resumé is what it really should be based on," so that even though Ward looked like crap against Kovalev, Ward can still say he deserves #1 because of resumé, eye test be damned.

Which is ridiculous because since when is beating Shawn Porter and Danny Garcia an incredible resumé? Those are solid wins but I'm not sure they are that the Gary Russell Jr. or Nicolas Walters level. I mean, he has Rigondeaux at #1 solely because he beat Nonito Donaire I guess, so doesn't that mean Walters, who knocked out Donaire, is just this amazing win for Lomachenko? All I want is some consistency!

Canelo at #3 because he fought even with Lara... I think Loma beating GRJ 10 rounds to 2 is more impressive than winning 6 rounds against Lara. Or is Canelo putting less of a hurt on Cotto than a lightweight Manny Pacquiao and a welterweight Floyd Mayweather did, even though Cotto was older when Canelo fought him, what seals it for Ward? See Ward is bending over backwards so hard to try to set this up for himself, he has gotten to the point of just valuing names on a list, rather than actually analyzing the fights in the ring or looking at the context. Hell, Austin Trout beat up Cotto worse than Canelo did. Now styles make fights, and Trout had a difficult style for Cotto similar to Jacobs physical advantages over GGG, but still.

I guess Canelo did beat Trout, fairly legitimately, biased open scoring forcing Trout to abandon his gameplan aside... so not really, actually... but sure, give him credit. He at least got the knockdown. But who has Trout beat?

Look, I'm not saying Canelo sucks. I'm just saying, most resumés in boxing suck now, and lack real depth, because guys fight so infrequently, and rarely fight the best. That's why if you're not counting the eye test, and HOW you win, you can't have a realistic P4P list, because there's not enough to go on. Like you can say Canelo deserves it on resumé because he beat Lara and Cotto, but guess what GGG beat Jacobs and Lemieux, both of whom would probably beat Lara and Cotto (I know they're a weight class bigger but still, Cotto did fight at middleweight, and Canelo was a middleweight draining down to 154 so as a MIDDLEWEIGHT, GGG's wins against top MIDDLEWEIGHTS are better than Canelo's wins against top junior middleweights).

Or look at Thurman. Yeah Porter and Garcia are nice wins, but you could argue Porter is David Lemieux with less one punch power, and Garcia is slower, with a shorter reach, and much worse footwork than Danny Jacobs. GGG has the better top two wins. The names might not be as big because welterweights are more known right now, but GGG beat the better opposition.

But again, you can pick and choose. I'm just pointing out that even the top P4P guys in this ****ty era have no more than 1 to 3 "top" wins, so are you really going to split hairs about those names and judge your P4P list on those names alone, or are you going to do the smart thing and incorporate eye test, and incorporate HOW you won? I mean what GGG did to David Lemieux is more impressive than Thurman beating Garcia by a couple rounds in a decision and retreating the last third of the fight. It just is. But you wouldn't know that if all you looked at was "well they both won." No, you have to look at HOW. How many rounds did they win? Did they know the guy out? Etc.

Of course, Ward rarely knocks guys out, but he wants to be P4P #1, so it suits him to pretend like that doesn't matter, and to not pick anyone based on that. That way, he can argue he deserves to get picked despite that too. So as usual he has an agenda and the things he says are either biased or fake.

Until one of these guys actually clearly takes out a REAL top name, I'm talking Mikey Garcia for Lomachenko, Canelo Gilberto or Ward for GGG, Kovalev for Ward (but legitimately this time) or vice versa, Spence or Floyd for Thurman, then you really can't go on resumé. The truth is NONE of these guys have a truly elite win, and that's why boxing is suffering right now.

That's the real reason Andre Ward is disliked. He talks so much about valuing resumé, like he's this holier than thou hero and the only guy out there with a real track record, and yet his best legitimate win is ****ing Carl Froch. Carl Froch, the slowest champion in the history of boxing lol. That's why people don't like Ward. The way he talks about himself, you think he went up to heavyweight and beat prime Muhammad Ali, but then you find out his entire resumé is Carl Froch and an old, injured Kessler, and an old Arthur Abraham. Those guys might have had better resumés before they got old than GGG's best opponents, but Ward didn't face them before they got old (except for Froch), he faced the versions that got in the ring, which makes the wins much less impressive.

And resumés aside, if you're talking about AT THE TIME they got into the ring, I think the speed, power, and athleticism of prime David Lemieux, and prime Danny Jacobs, are much more dangerous opponents than slow Froch or old Abraham and Kessler. And yet Ward acts like GGG is a hype job but he's Muhammad Ali. Dude, you beat Carl Froch. Carl Froch. Andre Dirrell and Jermain Taylor already did it better than you for most of the fight. You didn't beat George Foreman.

But, he talks like he has, and that's what's annoying. He's constantly saying "I've already accomplished everything in my career, I can retire now because I've done it all." Is beating Carl Froch "accomplishing everything"? I just don't get it, but I'm glad the Kovalev rematch is happening.

[JULIEN44]

"Surprisingly, Ward's top five does not include middleweight king Gennady Golovkin, eight division champion Manny Pacquiao or super flyweight sensation Roman Roman "Chocolatito" Gonzalez"

Not sure what is so surprising of this. The Ring doesn't have Pac in their top 10. TBRB has GGG at #7. So it's not surprising if an individual doesn't have either fighter in their top 5 when the two top professional publications have one or the other lower than top 5 or not even considering them for the top 10.

We all know why....

[1hourRun]

I'm Like



Stop hatin on Gonzalez cause he never retired or took a break as a pro Dre.

[Boxing Logic]

We all know why....

I do have a hunch, yes... something to do with GGG's pigmentation... or lack there of...

[MEXfistology]

Very odd choice for #1. Nobody's arguing that Rigo isn't a phenomenally skilled fighter, but can anyone name one of his four opponents since the Agbeko fight?

No? I'll do it for you:

James ****ens
Drian Francisco
Hisashi Amagasa
Anusorn Yotjan

You can't put a gun on fighters and make them fight you..every known coward on his weight class moved away to avoid him. "No , I'll do it for you" lol, just be quiet man seriously

[1hourRun]

Lol Ward is playing fake humble again. He has been whining the whole last year that he should be #1. His trainer even pulled out the Kovalev fight poster for a reporter and pointed to where it said it was "pound for pound" and that was supposed to go to the winner. But now when he's asked, he pretends he hasn't been saying he should be #1 for the last year. Fake.

It's also fake that Ward has said in interviews that his fight with Kovalev could have gone either way, but he doesn't include Kovalev in the top 5. So we know Ward thinks he deserves to be #1 P4P from other interviews, but apparently the guy who even Ward admits fought him even doesn't deserve to be in the conversation.

Just seems fake. Also putting Canelo at 3 and Thurman at 5 seems to be just another scheme of Ward to ultimately lobby for himself. No one has Canelo or Thurman that high on eye test, but Ward is putting them there as a scheme to say "resumé is what it really should be based on," so that even though Ward looked like crap against Kovalev, Ward can still say he deserves #1 because of resumé, eye test be damned.

Which is ridiculous because since when is beating Shawn Porter and Danny Garcia an incredible resumé? Those are solid wins but I'm not sure they are that the Gary Russell Jr. or Nicolas Walters level. I mean, he has Rigondeaux at #1 solely because he beat Nonito Donaire I guess, so doesn't that mean Walters, who knocked out Donaire, is just this amazing win for Lomachenko? All I want is some consistency!

Canelo at #3 because he fought even with Lara... I think Loma beating GRJ 10 rounds to 2 is more impressive than winning 6 rounds against Lara. Or is Canelo putting less of a hurt on Cotto than a lightweight Manny Pacquiao and a welterweight Floyd Mayweather did, even though Cotto was older when Canelo fought him, what seals it for Ward? See Ward is bending over backwards so hard to try to set this up for himself, he has gotten to the point of just valuing names on a list, rather than actually analyzing the fights in the ring or looking at the context. Hell, Austin Trout beat up Cotto worse than Canelo did. Now styles make fights, and Trout had a difficult style for Cotto similar to Jacobs physical advantages over GGG, but still.

I guess Canelo did beat Trout, fairly legitimately, biased open scoring forcing Trout to abandon his gameplan aside... so not really, actually... but sure, give him credit. He at least got the knockdown. But who has Trout beat?

Look, I'm not saying Canelo sucks. I'm just saying, most resumés in boxing suck now, and lack real depth, because guys fight so infrequently, and rarely fight the best. That's why if you're not counting the eye test, and HOW you win, you can't have a realistic P4P list, because there's not enough to go on. Like you can say Canelo deserves it on resumé because he beat Lara and Cotto, but guess what GGG beat Jacobs and Lemieux, both of whom would probably beat Lara and Cotto (I know they're a weight class bigger but still, Cotto did fight at middleweight, and Canelo was a middleweight draining down to 154 so as a MIDDLEWEIGHT, GGG's wins against top MIDDLEWEIGHTS are better than Canelo's wins against top junior middleweights).

Or look at Thurman. Yeah Porter and Garcia are nice wins, but you could argue Porter is David Lemieux with less one punch power, and Garcia is slower, with a shorter reach, and much worse footwork than Danny Jacobs. GGG has the better top two wins. The names might not be as big because welterweights are more known right now, but GGG beat the better opposition.

But again, you can pick and choose. I'm just pointing out that even the top P4P guys in this ****ty era have no more than 1 to 3 "top" wins, so are you really going to split hairs about those names and judge your P4P list on those names alone, or are you going to do the smart thing and incorporate eye test, and incorporate HOW you won? I mean what GGG did to David Lemieux is more impressive than Thurman beating Garcia by a couple rounds in a decision and retreating the last third of the fight. It just is. But you wouldn't know that if all you looked at was "well they both won." No, you have to look at HOW. How many rounds did they win? Did they know the guy out? Etc.

Of course, Ward rarely knocks guys out, but he wants to be P4P #1, so it suits him to pretend like that doesn't matter, and to not pick anyone based on that. That way, he can argue he deserves to get picked despite that too. So as usual he has an agenda and the things he says are either biased or fake.

Until one of these guys actually clearly takes out a REAL top name, I'm talking Mikey Garcia for Lomachenko, Canelo Gilberto or Ward for GGG, Kovalev for Ward (but legitimately this time) or vice versa, Spence or Floyd for Thurman, then you really can't go on resumé. The truth is NONE of these guys have a truly elite win, and that's why boxing is suffering right now.

That's the real reason Andre Ward is disliked. He talks so much about valuing resumé, like he's this holier than thou hero and the only guy out there with a real track record, and yet his best legitimate win is ****ing Carl Froch. Carl Froch, the slowest champion in the history of boxing lol. That's why people don't like Ward. The way he talks about himself, you think he went up to heavyweight and beat prime Muhammad Ali, but then you find out his entire resumé is Carl Froch and an old, injured Kessler, and an old Arthur Abraham. Those guys might have had better resumés before they got old than GGG's best opponents, but Ward didn't face them before they got old (except for Froch), he faced the versions that got in the ring, which makes the wins much less impressive.

And resumés aside, if you're talking about AT THE TIME they got into the ring, I think the speed, power, and athleticism of prime David Lemieux, and prime Danny Jacobs, are much more dangerous opponents than slow Froch or old Abraham and Kessler. And yet Ward acts like GGG is a hype job but he's Muhammad Ali. Dude, you beat Carl Froch. Carl Froch. Andre Dirrell and Jermain Taylor already did it better than you for most of the fight. You didn't beat George Foreman.

But, he talks like he has, and that's what's annoying. He's constantly saying "I've already accomplished everything in my career, I can retire now because I've done it all." Is beating Carl Froch "accomplishing everything"? I just don't get it, but I'm glad the Kovalev rematch is happening.

[kiDynamite92]

Been saying this for a while... even when Mayweather was still active.

Atm it's #1 Rigondeaux and #2 Lomachenko

The rest is very debatable.

[DinoCop]

Rigo's friend told dontaesracistnation that Loma offered him the fight but the price was so funny so they had to refuse, how much was that? 500.000 $!!!!
I think Rigo is one of the best best right now but if he's not trying to make the maximum $ we can say that his ring IQ doesn't have any practical use outside the ring.

But maybe he really doesn't want to be a part of the game and exposition to public and trying to retire litle by little.