Rankings (August 2): Wood crashes featherweight top 10, more
An upset and a retirement led to some notable shifts in the rankings.
Rankings go up on Mondays at 10 am ET.
Ranked fights this week:
- Heavyweight: (9) Michael Hunter vs Mike Wilson, Aug. 3
- Featherweight: (3) Kid Galahad vs Jazza Dickens, Aug. 7
- Bantamweight: (10) Lee McGregor vs Vincent Legrand, Aug. 6
Notes: Joe Joyce’s July 24 win over Carlos Takam wasn’t the most thorough or impressive victory ever, and the Takam side moaned about the stoppage, but he’s 40, he knows he has to throw punches back if he doesn’t want referees to stop him, and Joyce isn’t really so much about domination in the sense that he’s not going to win every round of fights or anything like that. His strength is in his size, engine, and durability, that he can hopefully wear people down. He doesn’t even have particularly huge power for his size or that stoppage rate, he’s not a big one-punch artist or anything. He just drains opponents. So he stays where he was.
Upcoming Fights: (9) Michael Hunter vs Mike Wilson, Aug. 3 ... (2) Anthony Joshua vs (6) Oleksandr Usyk, Sept. 25 ... (1) Tyson Fury vs (3) Deontay Wilder, Oct. 9
Upcoming Fights: TBA
Upcoming Fights: (4) Joe Smith Jr vs Umar Salamov, TBA
Upcoming Fights: (3) David Benavidez vs Jose Uzcategui, Aug. 28 ... (1) Canelo Alvarez vs TBA, Sept. 18
Upcoming Fights: (1) Gennadiy Golovkin vs (5) Ryota Murata, TBA
Upcoming Fights: (7) Sebastian Fundora vs (10) Sergio Garcia, TBA
Notes: Keith “One Time Every Once in a While” Thurman is out, it’s been two years, he doesn’t have anything scheduled, that’s long enough. That bumps a bunch of people up a spot and gives an opening in the No. 10 slot, where I went with Egidijus “Mean Machine” Kavaliauskas.
Kavaliauskas’ run in the top 10 may be brief, as he faces Vergil Ortiz Jr on Aug. 14 and if he loses there, I think about the decision again, which this time really came down to Kavaliauskas, Jamal James, and David Avanesyan. And Mikey Garcia will be moving back down to 140 at some point, it seems, though with Mikey Garcia I think it’s wise to take a “wait until it’s fully announced and signed” approach to anything actually happening.
Upcoming Fights: (7) Vergil Ortiz Jr vs (10) Egidijus Kavaliauskas, Aug. 14 ... (1) Errol Spence Jr vs (3) Manny Pacquiao, Aug. 21 ... (5) Yordenis Ugas vs Fabian Maidana, Aug. 21 ... (2) Terence Crawford vs (4) Shawn Porter, TBA ... (9) Mikey Garcia vs Regis Prograis [junior welterweight], TBA
Upcoming Fights: (7) Ivan Baranchyk vs Montana Love, Aug. 29 ... (1) Josh Taylor vs Jack Catterall, TBA ... (2) Regis Prograis vs Mikey Garcia, TBA
Notes: With Luke Campbell retiring, a spot opened up, so Masayoshi Nakatani is back in. I know he’s lost two of his last three, but they were to Teofimo Lopez and Vasiliy Lomachenko, who would probably also beat everyone else here, or at the very least would be favored to do so.
Upcoming Fights: (1) Teofimo Lopez vs (9) George Kambosos Jr, TBA
Upcoming Fights: (7) Shavkat Rakhimov vs Kenichi Ogawa, Aug. 20 ... (1) Oscar Valdez vs Robson Conceicao, Sept. 10 ... (3) Jamel Herring vs (5) Shakur Stevenson, TBA
Notes: Well, that’s why you fight the fights. Leigh Wood didn’t totally dominate Xu Can in his Saturday upset, but he didn’t leave any room for doubt, either. He should have won on points if the fight had finished the distance, and he did not let it finish the distance, earning a 12th round stoppage.
The win gives Wood what should be the only WBA belt out there, so for my money — and I take this case-by-case because boxing absolutely just does not work with definites across the board — he’s as much “world champion” as Russell or Navarrete are, or the Galahad-Dickens winner will be.
This is a loose, odd division to rank, so yeah, Leigh Wood: Top Five Featherweight. I’m not saying I think he’d deeeefinitely beat everyone below him (Villa would give him or anyone except Russell hell just on style, I believe, and a good Warrington would be a handful, etc.) but he looked good, disciplined, and confident in that fight. Sometimes fighters have it click and get a real run in a career that didn’t look like anything special not too long ago. Wood is on one one of those runs.
Upcoming Fights: (3) Kid Galahad vs Jazza Dickens, Aug. 7 ... (5) Mauricio Lara vs (6) Josh Warrington, Sept. 4 ... (1) Gary Russell Jr vs Rey Vargas, TBA
Upcoming Fights: (2) Stephen Fulton Jr vs (3) Brandon Figueroa, Sept. 11 ... (4) Danny Roman vs (10) Ra’eese Aleem, Sept. 11 ... (1) Murodjon Akhmadaliev vs (8) Ronny Rios, TBA
Upcoming Fights: (10) Lee McGregor vs Vincent Legrand, Aug. 6 ... (3) John Riel Casimero vs (4) Guillermo Rigondeaux, Aug. 14 ... (6) Emmanuel Rodriguez vs Gary Antonio Russell, Aug. 14 ... (7) Jason Moloney vs Joshua Greer Jr, Aug. 14 ... (9) Takuma Inoue vs Shingo Wake, Nov. 11
Upcoming Fights: (7) Joshua Franco vs (9) Andrew Moloney, Aug. 14 ... (2) Kazuto Ioka vs Francisco Rodriguez Jr, Sept. 1 ... (1) Juan Francisco Estrada vs (4) Chocolatito Gonzalez, Oct. 16 ... (3) Srisaket Sor Rungvisai vs Carlos Cuadras, TBA
Upcoming Fights: (3) Junto Nakatani vs (6) Angel Acosta, Sept. 10 ... (2) Sunny Edwards vs Jayson Mama, Sept. 11
Upcoming Fights: (1) Kenshiro Teraji vs Masamichi Yabuki, Sept. 10 ... (2) Hiroto Kyoguchi vs (10) Esteban Bermudez, TBA
Upcoming Fights: TBA
Upcoming Fights: (3) Errol Spence Jr vs Manny Pacquiao, Aug. 21 ... (1) Canelo Alvarez vs TBA, Sept. 18 ... (8) Oleksandr Usyk vs Anthony Joshua, Sept. 25 ... (9) Tyson Fury vs Deontay Wilder, Oct. 9 ... (10) Juan Francisco Estrada vs Chocolatito Gonzalez, Oct. 16 ... (4) Teofimo Lopez vs George Kambosos Jr, TBA ... (6) Terence Crawford vs Shawn Porter, TBA ... (7) Josh Taylor vs Jack Catterall, TBA
Upcoming Fights: (3) Amanda Serrano vs Yamileth Mercado, Aug. 29 ... (6) Mikaela Mayer vs (10) Maiva Hamadouche, TBA