Saturday Night Boxing: Pound-for-Pound Update 10-17-13

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Pound-for-Pound Update 10-17-13

The elevation of Tim Bradley, fresh off his split decision victory over Juan Manuel Marquez, highlights the numerous changes to the Saturday Night Boxing Top-20 Pound-for-Pound list. Two other fighters rose significantly in the Rankings over the past month. Wladimir Klitschko dominated one of the toughest opponents of his career in Alexander Povetkin, further establishing his case as one of the best boxers in the sport. In addition, Adonis Stevenson continued to add to his solid 2013 by defeating former champion Tavoris Cloud.

For the fighters mentioned below, their new ranking will be included next to their name in bold. Their previous position will be in parenthesis.

Wladimir Klitschko: 4 (6) Klitschko punched and grappled his way to a near-shutout win over Alexander Povetkin. Klitschko has now made 15 defenses of his heavyweight title and you could probably count the number of rounds he lost in those fights on two hands. True, the division isn't historically strong, but Klitschko's complete domination justifies his position in the top echelon of all fighters in boxing.

Tim Bradley: 5 (11) Bradley scored the biggest (legitimate) win of his career by defeating Juan Manuel Marquez in a split decision. After a two-fight stretch where he received a suspect decision against Manny Pacquiao and struggled to beat the unranked Ruslan Provodnikov, Bradley went back to establishing himself as one of the top talents in boxing against Marquez.

Juan Manuel Marquez: 6 (3) Marquez fell short against Bradley in a fight that featured a number of close rounds. Ultimately, Marquez was outworked and failed to make any significant adjustments to change the tenor of the fight. Although he complained about being robbed by the judges after the match, the loss wasn't controversial in the eyes of the boxing public; Bradley had done enough to win.

Adonis Stevenson: 14 (unranked) Stevenson has had a banner year so far in 2013. He avenged the only loss of his career by knocking out Darnell Boone. He moved up to light heavyweight and destroyed the lineal king of the division, Chad Dawson. Finally, late last month he stopped former champion Tavoris Cloud in seven rounds. To this point, Stevenson has made a strong case for Fighter of the Year.

With the addition of Stevenson to the Rankings, Shinsuke Yamanaka drops out. The complete SNB Top-20 Fighters list is below.