It's been a long time since the last Saturday Night Boxing Pound-for-Pound update. How long? Six months in fact and much has happened in the boxing world since then. Perhaps the biggest fight in terms of pound-for-pound relevance since the last update was the clash between Errol Spence and Mikey Garcia, a matchup between two of the best boxers in the sport. Moving up to welterweight, Garcia was rendered ineffective by Spence's work rate, movement and power punches. As a result, Spence moves up the list from #10 to #8 and Mikey Garcia slides from #6 to #9.
Two Asian boxers continue their impressive climbs up the pound-for-pound list. Donnie Nietes, from the Philippines, won a squeaker against former multi-division titlist Kazuto Ioka on New Year's Eve. Nietes, now campaigning at junior bantamweight, has won titles in four divisions. He moves up to #10 from #13. Japan's Kosei Tanaka continues his meteoric ascent in boxing. At just 23 and with only 13 professional fights, Tanaka, a flyweight champion, added to his resume earlier this year by defeating former 108-lb. champion Ryoichi Taguchi in an impressive performance. He moves up to #11 from #15.
Elsewhere in the rankings, three fighters make their debut. Josh Warrington, Miguel Berchelt and Wanheng Menayothin enter the pound-for-pounds list at #18, #19 and #20, respectively. Warrington had an excellent 2018, defeating a current featherweight champ (Lee Selby) and a recent one (Carl Frampton), who had been #20 in the SNB Rankings prior to the fight. Miguel Berchelt is in the midst of an impressive run at junior lightweight, defeating three action warriors in Francisco Vargas, Takashi Miura and Miguel Roman. Menayothin, of Thailand, has defended his minimumweight title 11 times. To this point Menayothin (52-0) hasn't faced a Murderer's Row of opponents, but he is starting to build a solid resume.
With his eighth-round knockout over Tony Bellew, undisputed cruiserweight Oleksandr Usyk moves from #4 to #3.
In addition to Frampton, two other fighters dropped out of the rankings. Adonis Stevenson was knocked out by Oleksandr Gvozdyk and it's unlikely that the 41-year-old will ever fight again. Guillermo Rigondeaux also leaves the rankings. Rigondeaux hasn't had a notable win in years, and his inactivity and quality of opposition leave a lot to be desired.
Here is the complete Saturday Night Boxing Pound-for-Pound List:
- Vasiliy Lomachenko
- Terence Crawford
- Oleksandr Usyk
- Srisaket Sor Rungvisai
- Naoya Inoue
- Saul Alvarez
- Gennady Golovkin
- Errol Spence
- Mikey Garcia
- Donnie Nietes
- Kosei Tanaka
- Juan Estrada
- Anthony Joshua
- Jarrett Hurd
- Manny Pacquiao
- Leo Santa Cruz
- Roman Gonzalez
- Josh Warrington
- Miguel Berchelt
- Wanheng Menayothin
Adam Abramowitz is the founder and head writer of saturdaynightboxing.com. He's a member of Ring Magazine's Ring Ratings Panel and a Board Member for the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board.
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