Saturday Night Boxing: Pound-for-Pound Update 10-22-14

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Pound-for-Pound Update 10-22-14

With a number of top fighters in action over the past month, there were some significant changes to the Saturday Night Boxing pound-for-pound list. Two boxers in the lower portion of my top-20 lost (Anselmo Moreno and Nonito Donaire) and I considered four fighters to fill the open slots: Sergey Kovalev, Terence Crawford, Nicholas Walters and Shinsuke Yamanaka. After reviewing their respective bodies of work, I favored Kovalev and Yamanaka for placement in the Rankings.

Also, a note on Andre Ward: As of November 16th, Ward will have gone a year without a fight. This dubious milestone is often when a boxer gets removed from a rankings system. For the SNB Top-20 Fighters list, I will not be dropping him at this time. I reacted similarly to Floyd Mayweather's last "break" of 16 months prior to his return against Victor Ortiz. Ward, embroiled in promotional problems, has not retired and plans to fight again. For now, he remains. I will revisit Ward's status in the future; obviously, he doesn't warrant a position in perpetuity.

For the following fighters, their current position will be in bold and their previous ranking will be in parenthesis (NR stands for "not ranked"):

Anselmo Moreno NR (16): The longtime bantamweight king dropped a technical decision to Juan Carlos Payano. The fight was stopped after six rounds because of a cut on Payano and Moreno trailed on all three scorecards. Moreno had a nice run at 118, defending his title 12 times. However, the loss to the unheralded Payano was a significant step back. He drops out of the Rankings.

Nonito Donaire NR (17): Donaire suffered the first knockout loss of his career against Nicholas Walters. Dropped in the third round and stopped in the sixth, Donaire couldn't withstand Walters' power. A few years ago, Donaire was one of the top talents in boxing, but in his last four fights he is only 2-2; even in those two wins he had failed to impress. He falls out of the SNB pound-for-pound list.

Shinsuke Yamanaka 18 (NR): Yamanaka, the undefeated bantamweight titlist from Japan (22-0-2, 16 KOs), returns to the Rankings after a three-month hiatus. Yamanaka defeated Thailand's Suriyan Sor Rungvisai this month, scoring three knockdowns to extend his title defense streak to seven. He has stopped five of his seven title challengers.

Sergey Kovalev 20 (NR): Amassing a 25-0-1 record with 23 stoppages, the Russian KO artist and light heavyweight titleholder has made a name for himself by dominating past champion Gabriel Campillo and then-titleholder Nathan Cleverly. Kovalev can shoot up the Rankings even further if he defeats Bernard Hopkins next month:

Here is the complete Saturday Night Boxing pound-for-pound list: