(Jun 09) Angry Fight Fan World Boxing Rankings

The longest reign as #1 in boxing was ended in just two rounds by Manny Pacquiao this month as he destroyed the four year champion Ricky Hatton at the start of the month to solidify his number one pound for pound status. The win drops Ricky Hatton from my pound for pound top ten for the first time since the win over Tszyu in 2005, marking the entrance of Chad Dawson into the top 10. Dawson enters over the likes of Celestino Caballero, Miguel Cotto (who’s current spot in most peoples top tens still baffles me), Tomasz Adamek (who Dawson beat), Chris John and Ivan Calderon based on an ever increasing impressive resume. A win over someone like Bernard Hopkins will propel Dawson into the top five. In what was otherwise a pretty quiet month for the sport, the bantamweights got some new blood into the top five with Yohnny Perez’s knockout win over longtime top contender Silce Mabuza last weekend. Perez is a young, exciting fighter who will likely give the winner of this months Darchinyan-Agebeko fight a good scrap.
The rankings are based on all fights that happened before May 1st 2009, so if there’s a result that happened on March 1st (I’m using boxrec’s calender) then it’ll be included next month. These rankings are my own work and have absolutely no reflection on any ABC rankings or anything else but my own opinion. Please feel free to flame me in the comments section.

Weight Division (weight limit)
(Last Month) Ranking- Fighter (Record)

Pound for Pound 
(1) 1- Manny Pacquiao (49-3-2)
(2) 2- Juan Manuel Marquez (50-4-1)
(3) 3- Paul Williams (37-1-0)
(4) 4- Bernard Hopkins (49-5-1)
(5) 5- Israel Vazquez (43-4-0)
(6) 6- Shane Mosley (46-5-0)
(7) 7- Rafael Marquez (38-5-0)
(9) 8- Kelly Pavlik (35-1-0)
(10) 9- Vic Darchinyan (32-1-1)
(NA) 10- Chad Dawson (28-0-0)

Active- Manny Pacquiao, Rafael Marquez, Chad Dawson
Out- Ricky Hatton (loss)

Heavyweight (no limit)
(1) 1- Wladimir Klitschko (52-3-0)
(2) 2- Vitali Klitschko (37-2-0)
(3) 3- Ruslan Chagaev (25-0-1)
(4) 4- Nicolay Valuev (50-1-0)
(5) 5- Alexander Povetkin (17-0-0)
(6) 6- David Haye (22-1-0)
(7) 7- Alexander Dimitrenko (29-0-0)
(8) 8- Cristobal Arreola (27-0-0)
(9) 9- Sultan Ibragimov (22-1-1)
(10) 10- Eddie Chambers (34-1-0)

Active- None

Cruiserweight (200lbs)
(1) 1- Tomasz Adamek (37-1-0)
(2) 2- Guillermo Jones (36-3-2)
(3) 3- Steve Cunningham (21-2-0)
(4) 4- Marco Huck (25-1-0)
(5) 5- Jean Marc Mormeck (33-4-0)
(6) 6- O’Neill Bell (26-3-1)
(7) 7- Firat Arslan (29-4-1)
(8) 8- Vadim Tokarev (26-1-1)
(9) 9- Kryzstof Wlodarczyk (41-2-1)
(10) 10- Giacobbe Fragomeni (26-1-1)

Active- Marco Huck, Kryzstof Wlodarczyk (draw), Giacobbe Fragomeni (draw)

Light Heavyweight (175lbs)
(1) 1- Bernard Hopkins (49-4-1)
(2) 2- Chad Dawson (28-0-0)
(3) 3- Glenn Johnson (49-12-2)
(5) 4- Zsolt Erdei (30-0-0)
(4) 5-  Antonio Tarver (27-6-0)
(6) 6- Clinton Woods (42-4-1)
(7) 7- Hugo Garay (32-3-0)
(8) 8- Roy Jones jnr (52-5-0)
(9) 9- Adrian Diaconu (26-0-0)
(10) 10- Tavoris Cloud (19-0-0)

Active- Chad Dawson, Antonio Tarver (loss)

Super Middleweight (168lbs)
(1) 1- Mikkel Kessler (41-1-0)
(2) 2- Lucian Bute (24-0-0)
(3) 3- Carl Froch (25-0-0)
(4) 4- Librado Andrade (28-2-0)
(5) 5- Karoly Balszay (21-0-0)
(6) 6- Sakio Bika (27-3-2)
(7) 7- Jermain Taylor (28-3-1)
(8) 8- Dennis Inkin (34-1-0)
(9) 9- Jeff Lacy (25-2-0)
(10) 10- Andre Dirrell (18-0-0)

Active- None

Middleweight (160lbs)
(1) 1- Kelly Pavlik (35-1-0)
(2) 2- Arthur Abraham (29-0-0)
(3) 3- Paul Williams (37-1-0)
(4) 4- Felix Sturm (32-2-1)
(5) 5- Winky Wright (51-5-1)
(6) 6- Anthony Mundine (36-3-0)
(7) 7- Khoren Gevor (30-3-0)
(8) 8- Randy Griffin (24-2-3)
(9) 9- Sebastian Sylvester (29-3-0)
(10) 10- Amin Asikainen (25-2-0)

Active- Anthony Mundine

Junior Middleweight (154lbs)
(1) 1- Vernon Forrest (41-3-0)
(2) 2- Sergei Dzinziruk (36-0-0)
(3) 3- Daniel Santos (32-3-0)
(7) 4- Kermit Cintron (30-2-1)
(4) 5- Verno Phillips (42-11-1)
(5) 6- Cory Spinks (36-5-0)
(6) 7- Sergio Manuel Martinez (44-1-1)
(8) 8- James Kirkland (25-0-0)
(9) 9- Sergio Mora (21-1-1)
(10) 10- Jamie Moore (31-3-0)

Active- Kermit Cintron

Welterweight (147lbs)
(1) 1- Shane Mosley (46-5-0)
(2) 2- Miguel Cotto (32-1-0)
(3) 3- Andre Berto (25-0-0)
(4) 4- Joshua Clottey (35-2-0)
(5) 5- Carlos Quintana (26-2-0)
(6) 6- Luis Collazo (29-4-0)
(7) 7- Zab Judah (37-6-0)
(8) 8- Mike Jones (17-0-0)
(9) 9- Sebastian Lujan (31-5-2)
(10) 10- Rafal Jackiewicz (33-8-1)

Active- Andre Berto

Junior Welterweight (140lbs)
(NA) 1- Manny Pacquiao (49-3-2)
(1) 2- Ricky Hatton (45-2-0)
(2) 3- Timothey Bradley (24-0-0)
(3) 4- Andreas Kotelnik (30-2-0)
(4) 5- Kendall Holt (25-3-0)
(5) 6- Paulie Malignaggi (26-2-0)
(6) 7- Ricardo Torres (32-2-0)
(8) 8- Junior Witter (37-2-2)
(9) 9- Victor Ortiz (24-1-1)
(10) 10- Vivian Harris (29-3-1)

Active- Manny Pacquiao, Ricky Hatton (loss)
Out- Juan Urango (moved up)

Lightweight (135lbs)
(1) 1- Juan Manuel Marquez (50-4-1)
(3) 2- Edwin Valero (25-0-0)
(4) 3- Juan Diaz (34-2-0)
(5) 4- Joel Casmayor (36-4-1)
(6) 5- Joan Guzman (29-0-0)
(7) 6- Ali Funeka (30-2-2)
(8) 7- David Diaz (34-2-1)
(9) 8- Anthony Peterson (28-0-0)
(10) 9- Breidis Prescott (21-0-0)
(NA) 10- Amir Khan (20-1-0)

Active- None
Out- Manny Pacquiao (moved up)

Junior Lightweight (130lbs)
(1) 1- Humberto Soto (48-7-2)
(2) 2- Jorge Linares (26-0-0)
(3) 3- Roman Martinez (22-0-1)
(4) 4- Malcolm Klassen (23-4-2)
(5) 5- Robert Guerrero (22-1-1)
(6) 6- Cassius Baloyi (36-3-1)
(7) 7- Mzonke Fana (28-4-0)
(8) 8- Nicky Cook (29-2-0)
(9) 9- Alex Arthur (26-2-0)
(10) 10- Sergey Gulyakevich (26-1-0)

Active- Humberto Soto

Featherweight (126lbs)
(1) 1- Chris John (42-0-2)
(2) 2- Cristobal Cruz (38-11-1)
(3) 3- Ricardo Juarez (28-4-1)
(4) 4- Steve Luevano (36-1-1)
(5) 5- Jorge Solis (37-1-2)
(6) 6- Takahiro Aoh (17-1-1)
(7) 7- Yuriorkis Gamboa (15-0-0)
(8) 8- Guty Espadas Jnr (45-7-0)
(9) 9- Thomas Mashaba (20-2-4)
(10) 10- Mario Santiago (19-1-1)

Active- None

Junior Featherweight (122lbs)
(1) 1- Israel Vazquez (43-4-0)
(2) 2- Rafael Marquez (37-5-0)
(3) 3- Celestino Caballero (32-2-0)
(4) 4- Juan Manuel Lopez (25-0-0)
(5) 5- Poonsawat Krattindaenggym (38-1-0)
(6) 6- Daniel Ponce de Leon (36-2-0)
(10) 7- Toshiaki Nishioka (33-4-3)
(7) 8- Gerry Penalosa (54-7-2)
(9) 9- Steve Molitor (28-1-0)
(NA) 10- Bernard Dunne (28-1-0)

Active- Rafael Marquez, Toshiaki Nishioka
Out- Jhonny Gonzalez (loss)

Bantamweight (118lbs)
(1) 1- Hozumi Hasegawa (26-2-0)
(2) 2- Fernando Montiel (39-2-1)
(3) 3- Anselmo Moreno (24-1-1)
(8) 4- Yohnny Perez (18-0-0)
(6) 5- Abner Mares (17-0-0)
(4) 6- Silence Mabuza (22-2-0)
(7) 7- Joseph Agebeko (26-1-0)
(5) 8- Wladimir Siderenko (21-1-2)
(9) 9- Nehomar Cermeno (17-0-0)
(10) 10- Simone Maludrottu (29-2-0)

Active- Anselmo Moreno, Yohnny Perez, Abner Mares, Silence Mabuza (loss), Wladimir Siderenko (loss)

Junior Bantamweight (115lbs)
(1) 1- Vic Darchinyan (32-1-1)
(2) 2- Alexander Munoz (32-3-0)
(3) 3- Nobuo Nashiro (13-1-0)
(4) 4- Z Gorres (29-2-2)
(5) 5- Jorge Arce (51-5-1)
(6) 6- Jose Lopez (39-7-2)
(7) 7- Hugo Cazares (29-6-1)
(8) 8- Dimitri Kirilov (29-4-1)
(9) 9- Jose Navarro (26-4-0)
(10) 10- Kohei Kono (23-4-0)

Active- Kohei Kono

Flyweight (112lbs)
(1) 1- Nonito Donaire (21-1-0)
(2) 2- Denkaosan Kaovichit (46-1-1)
(3) 3- Daisuke Naito (34-2-3)
(4) 4- Omar Narvaez (28-0-2)
(5) 5- Pongsaklek Wonjongkam (72-3-1)
(6) 6- Koki Kameda (20-0-0)
(7) 7- Takefumi Sakata (33-5-2)
(8) 8- Bernard Inom (19-1-1)
(9) 9- Moruti Mthalane (23-2-0)
(10) 10- Jose Cesar Miranda (29-4-1)

Active- Denkoasan Kaovichit, Daisuke Naito

Junior Flyweight (108lbs)
(1) 1- Ivan Calderon (32-0-0)
(2) 2- Edgar Soto (35-5-0)
(3) 3- Brian Viloria (24-2-0)
(4) 4- Giovanni Segura (19-1-1)
(5) 5- Ulises Solis (28-2-2)
(6) 6- Brahim Asloum (24-2-0)
(7) 7- Juan Carlos Reveco (19-1-0)
(8) 8- Cesar Canchila (27-1-0)
(9) 9- Juanito Rubillar (46-11-7)
(10) 10- Omar Nino Romero (27-3-1)

Active- Brahim Asloum

Minimumweight (105lbs)
(1) 1- Roman Gonzalez (23-0-0)
(2) 2- Oleydong Sithsamerchai (31-0-0)
(3) 3- Raul Garcia (26-0-1)
(4) 4- Florante Condes (23-4-1)
(5) 5- Donnie Nietes (24-1-3)
(6) 6- Juan Palacios (25-2-0)
(7) 7- Milan Melindo (18-0-0)
(8) 8- Nkosinathi Joyi (19-0-0)
(10) 9- Manuel Vargas (26-3-1)
(NA) 10- Katsunari Takayama (23-3-0)

Active- Oleydong Sithsamerchai
Out- Muhammad Rachman (loss)

Pacquiao demolises Hatton

Manny Pacquiao made light work of World Junior Welterweight Champion Ricky Hatton, scoring a stunning second round knockout to end Hatton’s four year reign. Hatton was aggressive in the first minute, but once Pacquiao found his range he began to score frequently with a lightning fast lead right hook that ‘The Hitman’ had no answer for. Towards the end of the first round one of these hooks, a counter to a wild Hatton left hook, put Hatton down face first. The punch was so quick it was hard to pick up in real time and although Hatton beat the count, he was clearly hurt. A further barrage from Pacquiao put the wobbly Hatton down again at the end of the round but time ran out before Pacquiao could move in for the kill.

Hatton seemed to recover a bit between rounds but was still on rubber legs. He continued to press the fight until Pacquiao began to score at which point Hatton was backed up for maybe the first time in his career. Pacquiao’s hand speed and timing were too much for Hatton, who seemed to have adjusted to the power although he was taking plenty of shots. Then in the final moments of the 2nd round, Pacquiao lowered the boom and landed an overhand left over Hatton’s right hand right on the button knocking Hatton unconscious before he hit the canvas. The referee stopped the count early as it was clear Hatton was not going to beat the count, and he didn’t rise for another few minutes.

With the victory, Pacquiao adds the Ring 140lb Championship to his Ring 130 and 126lb Championships as well as the WBC 112lb and 135lb belts and the IBF 122lb belt. Not only does he do that, but in my opinion anyway he moves past Floyd Mayweather jnr as the best fighter of the modern era (in that, I’m saying roughly the last 20-25 years). Pacquiao’s resume is unbelievable and unlike Mayweather he’s cleaned out divisions and sought the best fighters time and time again and with the exception of Marquez, dominated all of them. With the news of Mayweather returning to fight Marquez at 143lbs (this will save me an extra post, I think Floyd is being his typical self by throwing that much money at Marquez that he has no choice but to come up the extra weight. Let’s be realistic, Marquez would still be champion at 126lbs if there was anyone for him to fight there, he’s a big name and Floyd’s using that name and making him fight at his weight class to put himself back in the picture. I’d much rather have seen him take on Cotto or Mosley, but there’s risk in those fights and the reward isn’t that great so he’s picking on the Featherweight) it’s likely that we’ll see the blockbuster between Pacquiao and Mayweather at the end of this year. Then again, Mayweather might reconsider coming back after seeing that.

(May 09) Angry Fight Fan World Boxing Rankings

Most of the action this month coming at 122 and 168lbs, the big win of the month was Paull Williams domination over Winky Wright. Due to the one sidedness of this fight, I’ve moved Williams into the top three pound for pound behind Marquez and Pacquiao. Both Hopkins and Vazquez have been sort of inactive and a win by either of them will likely be enough to move Williams down the list, but on current form Williams’ wins over Wright (who had not been dominated like that ever even by Hopkins) and Margarito puts him right up there in my opinion.
The rankings are based on all fights that happened before May 1st 2009, so if there’s a result that happened on March 1st (I’m using boxrec’s calender) then it’ll be included next month. These rankings are my own work and have absolutely no reflection on any ABC rankings or anything else but my own opinion. Please feel free to flame me in the comments section.

Weight Division (weight limit)
(Last Month) Ranking- Fighter (Record)

Pound for Pound 
(1) 1- Manny Pacquiao (48-3-2)
(2) 2- Juan Manuel Marquez (50-4-1)
(7) 3- Paul Williams (37-1-0)
(3) 4- Bernard Hopkins (49-5-1)
(4) 5- Israel Vazquez (43-4-0)
(5) 6- Shane Mosley (46-5-0)
(6) 7- Rafael Marquez (37-5-0)
(8) 8- Ricky Hatton (45-1-0)
(9) 9- Kelly Pavlik (35-1-0)
(10) 10- Vic Darchinyan (32-1-1)

Active- Paul Williams

Heavyweight (no limit)
(1) 1- Wladimir Klitschko (52-3-0)
(2) 2- Vitali Klitschko (37-2-0)
(3) 3- Ruslan Chagaev (25-0-1)
(4) 4- Nicolay Valuev (50-1-0)
(5) 5- Alexander Povetkin (17-0-0)
(6) 6- David Haye (22-1-0)
(7) 7- Alexander Dimitrenko (29-0-0)
(8) 89- Sultan Ibragimov (22-1-1)
(9) 910- Eddie Chambers (34-1-0)
(NA) 8- Cristobal Arreola (27-0-0)

Active- Alexander Povetkin, Cristobal Arreola
Out- Samuel Peter (10)

Cruiserweight (200lbs)
(1) 1- Tomasz Adamek (37-1-0)
(2) 2- Guillermo Jones (36-3-2)
(3) 3- Steve Cunningham (21-2-0)
(4) 4- Marco Huck (24-1-0)
(5) 5- Jean Marc Mormeck (33-4-0)
(6) 6- O’Neill Bell (26-3-1)
(7) 7- Firat Arslan (29-4-1)
(8) 8- Vadim Tokarev (26-1-1)
(9) 9- Kryzstof Wlodarczyk (41-2-0)
(10) 10- Giacobbe Fragomeni (26-1-0)

Active- None

Light Heavyweight (175lbs)
(1) 1- Bernard Hopkins (49-4-1)
(2) 2- Chad Dawson (27-0-0)
(3) 3- Glenn Johnson (49-12-2)
(4) 4-  Antonio Tarver (27-5-0)
(5) 5- Zsolt Erdei (30-0-0)
(6) 6- Clinton Woods (42-4-1)
(7) 7- Hugo Garay (32-3-0)
(8) 8- Roy Jones jnr (52-5-0)
(9) 9- Adrian Diaconu (26-0-0)
(10) 10- Tavoris Cloud (19-0-0)

Active- Adrian Diaconu

Super Middleweight (168lbs)
(1) 1- Mikkel Kessler (41-1-0)
(2) 2- Lucian Bute (24-0-0)
(4) 3- Carl Froch (25-0-0)
(5) 4- Librado Andrade (28-2-0)
(7) 5- Karoly Balszay (21-0-0)
(6) 6- Sakio Bika (27-3-2)
(3) 7- Jermain Taylor (28-3-1)
(8) 8- Dennis Inkin (34-1-0)
(9) 9- Jeff Lacy (25-2-0)
(10) 10- Andre Dirrell (18-0-0)

Active- Carl Froch, Librado Andrade, Karoly Balzsay, Jermain Taylor (loss), Jeff Lacy

Middleweight (160lbs)
(1) 1- Kelly Pavlik (35-1-0)
(2) 2- Arthur Abraham (29-0-0)
(NA) 3- Paul Williams (37-1-0)
(3) 4- Felix Sturm (32-2-1)
(4) 5- Winky Wright (51-5-1)
(5) 6- Anthony Mundine (35-3-0)
(6) 7- Khoren Gevor (30-3-0)
(7) 8- Randy Griffin (24-2-3)
(8) 9- Sebastian Sylvester (29-3-0)
(10) 10- Amin Asikainen (25-2-0)

Active- Paul Williams, Felix Sturm, Winky Wright (loss)
Out- Javier Castillejo (draw)

Junior Middleweight (154lbs)
(2) 1- Vernon Forrest (41-3-0)
(3) 2- Sergei Dzinziruk (36-0-0)
(4) 3- Daniel Santos (32-3-0)
(5) 4- Verno Phillips (42-11-1)
(6) 5- Cory Spinks (36-5-0)
(7) 6- Sergio Manuel Martinez (44-1-1)
(8) 7- Kermit Cintron (30-2-1)
(9) 8- James Kirkland (25-0-0)
(10) 9- Sergio Mora (21-1-1)
(NA) 10- Jamie Moore (31-3-0)

Active- Cory Spinks
Out- Paul Williams (moved up)

Welterweight (147lbs)
(1) 1- Shane Mosley (46-5-0)
(2) 2- Miguel Cotto (32-1-0)
(3) 3- Andre Berto (24-0-0)
(4) 4- Joshua Clottey (35-2-0)
(5) 5- Carlos Quintana (26-2-0)
(6) 6- Luis Collazo (29-4-0)
(7) 7- Zab Judah (37-6-0)
(8) 8- Mike Jones (17-0-0)
(9) 9- Sebastian Lujan (31-5-2)
(10) 10- Rafal Jackiewicz (33-8-1)

Active- None

Junior Welterweight (140lbs)
(1) 1- Ricky Hatton (45-1-0)
(3) 2- Timothey Bradley (24-0-0)
(2) 3- Andreas Kotelnik (30-2-0)
(4) 4- Kendall Holt (25-3-0)
(6) 5- Paulie Malignaggi (26-2-0)
(5) 6- Ricardo Torres (32-2-0)
(7) 7- Juan Urango (20-1-1)
(8) 8- Junior Witter (37-2-2)
(9) 9- Victor Ortiz (24-1-1)
(10) 10- Vivian Harris (29-3-1)

Active- Timothey Bradley, Kendall Holt (loss), Paulie Malignaggi

Lightweight (135lbs)
(1) 1- Juan Manuel Marquez (50-4-1)
(2) 2- Manny Pacquiao (48-3-2)
(NA) 3- Edwin Valero (25-0-0)
(3) 4- Juan Diaz (34-2-0)
(4) 5- Joel Casmayor (36-4-1)
(6) 6- Joan Guzman (29-0-0)
(8) 7- Ali Funeka (30-2-2)
(9) 8- David Diaz (34-2-1)
(10) 9- Anthony Peterson (28-0-0)
(NA) 10- Breidis Prescott (21-0-0)

Active- Edwin Valero
Out- Antonio Pitalua (loss), Julio Diaz (loss)

Junior Lightweight (130lbs)
(3) 1- Humberto Soto (47-7-2)
(4) 2- Jorge Linares (26-0-0)
(5) 3- Roman Martinez (22-0-1)
(8) 4- Malcolm Klassen (23-4-2)
(6) 5- Robert Guerrero (22-1-1)
(2) 6- Cassius Baloyi (36-3-1)
(7) 7- Mzonke Fana (28-4-0)
(9) 8- Nicky Cook (29-2-0)
(10) 9- Alex Arthur (26-2-0)
(NA) 10- Sergey Gulyakevich (26-1-0)

Active- Malcolm Klassen, Cassius Baloyi (loss)
Out- Edwin Valero (moved up)

Featherweight (126lbs)
(1) 1- Chris John (42-0-2)
(2) 2- Cristobal Cruz (38-11-1)
(3) 3- Ricardo Juarez (28-4-1)
(4) 4- Steve Luevano (36-1-1)
(5) 5- Jorge Solis (37-1-2)
(6) 6- Takahiro Aoh (17-1-1)
(10) 7- Yuriorkis Gamboa (15-0-0)
(8) 8- Guty Espadas Jnr (45-7-0)
(7) 9- Thomas Mashaba (20-2-4)
(9) 10- Mario Santiago (19-1-1)

Active- Yuriorkia Gamboa, Guty Espadas Jnr

Junior Featherweight (122lbs)
(1) 1- Israel Vazquez (43-4-0)
(2) 2- Rafael Marquez (37-5-0)
(3) 3- Celestino Caballero (32-2-0)
(4) 4- Juan Manuel Lopez (25-0-0)
(5) 5- Poonsawat Krattindaenggym (38-1-0)
(6) 6- Daniel Ponce de Leon (36-2-0)
(NA) 7- Gerry Penalosa (54-7-2)
(7) 8- Jhonny Gonzalez (40-6-0)
(8) 9- Steve Molitor (28-1-0)
(9) 10- Toshiaki Nishioka (33-4-3)

Active- Celestino Caballero, Juan Manuel Lopez, Poonsawat Krattindaenggym, Gerry Penalosa (loss)
Out- Bernard Dunne (10)

Bantamweight (118lbs)
(1) 1- Hozumi Hasegawa (26-2-0)
(3) 2- Fernando Montiel (39-2-1)
(4) 3- Anselmo Moreno (24-1-1)
(5) 4- Silence Mabuza (22-2-0)
(6) 5- Wladimir Siderenko (21-1-2)
(7) 6- Abner Mares (17-0-0)
(8) 7- Joseph Agebeko (26-1-0)
(9) 8- Yohnny Perez (18-0-0)
(10) 9- Nehomar Cermeno (19-0-0)
(NA) 10- Simone Maludrottu (29-2-0)

Active- None
Out- Gerry Penalosa (moved up)

Junior Bantamweight (115lbs)
(1) 1- Vic Darchinyan (32-1-1)
(2) 2- Alexander Munoz (32-3-0)
(3) 3- Nobuo Nashiro (13-1-0)
(4) 4- Z Gorres (29-2-2)
(5) 5- Jorge Arce (51-5-1)
(6) 6- Jose Lopez (39-7-2)
(7) 7- Hugo Cazares (28-5-1)
(8) 8- Dimitri Kirilov (29-4-1)
(9) 9- Jose Navarro (26-4-0)
(10) 10- Kohei Kono (22-4-0)

Active- Nobuo Nashiro

Flyweight (112lbs)
(1) 1- Nonito Donaire (21-1-0)
(2) 2- Denkaosan Kaovichit (46-1-1)
(3) 3- Daisuke Naito (34-2-3)
(4) 4- Omar Narvaez (28-0-2)
(5) 5- Pongsaklek Wonjongkam (72-3-1)
(6) 6- Koki Kameda (20-0-0)
(7) 7- Takefumi Sakata (33-5-2)
(8) 8- Bernard Inom (19-1-1)
(NA) 9- Moruti Mthalane (23-2-0)
(9) 10- Jose Cesar Miranda (29-4-1)

Active- Nonito Donaire, Pongsaklek Wonjongkam, Jose Cesar Miranda (loss)
Out- Brian Viloria (moved down)

Junior Flyweight (108lbs)
(1) 1- Ivan Calderon (32-0-0)
(2) 2- Edgar Soto (35-5-0)
(NA) 3- Brian Viloria (24-2-0)
(4) 4- Giovanni Segura (19-1-1)
(3) 5- Ulises Solis (28-2-2)
(5) 6- Brahim Asloum (23-2-0)
(6) 7- Juan Carlos Reveco (19-1-0)
(7) 8- Cesar Canchila (27-1-0)
(8) 9- Juanito Rubillar (46-11-7)
(9) 10- Omar Nino Romero (27-3-1)

Active- Edgar Soto, Brian Viloria, Ulises Solis (loss)
Out- Nelson Dieppa (10)

Minimumweight (105lbs)
(1) 1- Roman Gonzalez (23-0-0)
(2) 2- Oleydong Sithsamerchai (30-0-0)
(3) 3- Raul Garcia (26-0-1)
(4) 4- Florante Condes (23-4-1)
(5) 5- Donnie Nietes (24-1-3)
(6) 6- Juan Palacios (25-2-0)
(7) 7- Milan Melindo (18-0-0)
(8) 8- Nkosinathi Joyi (19-0-0)
(9) 9- Muhammad Rachman (62-7-5)
(10) 10- Manuel Vargas (26-3-1)

Active- Raul Garcia

Boxing Breakdown: Ricky Hatton vs Manny Pacquiao

I really wanted to do a few posts on this fight, but I’ve been reduced to one because of time constraints. This fight is the biggest fight of the year and will be hard to top unless Pacquiao wins and fights Mayweather later in the year. Here you have the pound for pound number one fighting the dominant four year reigning champion at a weight higher then he’s competed for a title at. Both men have balls for taking this fight and it’s one of those fights that you can sit back and enjoy (unless your Phillipino or British).

Pacquiao is currently riding an incredible (incredible in terms of who he’s beaten, not the number of wins) nine fight winning streak that has included wins over Oscar De La Hoya, Juan Manuel Marquez, Marco Antonio Barrera and two stoppage wins over Erik Morales. Last year alone he captured two world titles in two different weight divisions and then dominated and stopped Oscar De La Hoya to cap off what was an amazing year. Prior to the titles he won at Junior Lightweight and Lightweight last year, Pacquiao has held the Linear Featherweight title (Pacquiao beat Barrera who beat Hamed who held all four belts at some stage during his reign), the IBF Junior Featherweight title and the WBC Flyweight title. This win would make him a legitimate three weight Linear Champion (140, 130, 126) (maybe even four as some claim he was the Linear Flyweight champion) and a six weight world title holder putting him basically in a league of his own unless you’re a De La Hoya fanboy who counts his WBO Middleweight and Junior Lightweight titles.

Pacquiao’s offensive capabilities are almost second to none. He punches with a ferocity that ranks along some of the all-time greats combining a monsterous workrate with explosive speed and devastating power. Lately Pacquiao has added solid defensive skills to his arsenal over the course of his recent five or six fights making him as dangerous a puncher as they come. Pacquiao has shown a weakness to good counter punchers like Marquez (and Barrera in the rematch for a short period) and guys who can control the range and punish him when he lunges in like Erik Morales. Hatton isn’t really either of those so you would think that he’d be able to dominate Hatton with his offense and punish Hatton’s sometimes lack of defence. However, Hatton’s in-fighting combined with his size is something we’ve yet to see Pacquiao have to deal with.

Ricky Hatton was often criticised on his way up for fighting over the hill fighters and soft touches while building up his record, but his 11th round stoppage over long time Junior Welterweight king Kostya Tszyu in 2005 will go down in British boxing history alongside great wins by British fighters like Turpin-Robinson I and Honeyghan-Curry. Hatton then moved up and won the WBA Welterweight title, before vacating it to make now six defences of his Light Welterweight crown. Jose Luis Castillo is the big name on his record since the Tszyu win, with Hatton stopping the Lightweight powerhouse with a body shot in the 4th round. The lone loss on his record came in a 2007 super fight with Floyd Mayweather Jnr when Hatton moved up to Welterweight to challenge the pound for pound king. Mayweather outboxed the Mancurian, stopping him in the 10th round.

Hatton’s style is overwhelming. While he takes punches early in the fight his aggression and physical strength especially at 140lbs are very hard to match without an impregnable defence. While Hatton has slowed down in recent fights, he always rises for the big fights as he showed in the Tszyu and Castillo wins as well as glimpses of in the Mayweather fight. Hatton’s big weapon is his foot speed as he cuts the danger zone for getting caught down rapidly allowing him to work on the inside and smother his opponents offence with his physical strength. Two things that could get Hatton in trouble are his tendancy to cut and his face first style which could spell badly if Pacquiao starts well and scores with some solid shots early on.

I’m really on the fence with this one, but I’m going for the upset and picking Hatton to win by late stoppage. I think his physical strength and body punching (should he use it) will hurt Manny in the late rounds and he physicality of the fight will be too much for the smaller Pacquiao. Hatton in my opinion has to start well to win this fight as he did against both Castillo and Tszyu. If Pacquiao starts strongly and builds a lead on the cards or causes some serious early damage on Hatton I believe he’ll ride that confidence to a one sided victory. One thing I’ve noticed with Pacquiao is that he isn’t a big fan of being hit in the body and thats going to have to be a key part of Hatton’s gameplan if he wants to win. Still, the combination of size and aggression that Hatton brings to this fight I think will cancel out Pacquiao’s speed and power and he’ll wear Pacquiao down and stop him late. Ricky Hatton by 10th round knockout.

(Apr 09) Angry Fight Fan World Boxing Rankings

The interesting thing I found this month is how stacked the Bantamweight division is becoming. Last month both Fernando Montiel and Cristian Mijares made their move there to join the likes of Hasegawa who just made the 8th successful defence of his WBC belt with a 1st round KO of Vusi Malinga. The division is that stacked that long time 115lb #1 Mijares lost his 118lb debut (which could be down to ill-effects suffered in the Darchinyan beatdown though. The thing though is that the 115lb division which six months ago was one of the strongest is now probably the weakest after Darchinyan cleaned out all of the top contenders bar Montiel. Now that Darchinyan will face Joseph Agbeko at 118lbs, the division will be a wasteland come July.
The rankings are based on all fights that happened before April 1st 2009, so if there’s a result that happened on March 1st (I’m using boxrec’s calender) then it’ll be included next month. These rankings are my own work and have absolutely no reflection on any ABC rankings or anything else but my own opinion. Please feel free to flame me in the comments section.

Weight Division (weight limit)
(Last Month) Ranking- Fighter (Record)

Pound for Pound 
(1) 1- Manny Pacquiao (48-3-2)
(2) 2- Juan Manuel Marquez (50-4-1)
(3) 3- Bernard Hopkins (49-5-1)
(4) 4- Israel Vazquez (43-4-0)
(5) 5- Shane Mosley (46-5-0)
(6) 6- Rafael Marquez (37-5-0)
(7) 7- Paul Williams (36-1-0)
(8) 8- Ricky Hatton (45-1-0)
(9) 9- Kelly Pavlik (35-1-0)
(10) 10- Vic Darchinyan (32-1-1)

Active- None

Heavyweight (no limit)
(1) 1- Wladimir Klitschko (52-3-0)
(2) 2- Vitali Klitschko (37-2-0)
(3) 3- Ruslan Chagaev (25-0-1)
(4) 4- Nicolay Valuev (50-1-0)
(5) 5- Alexander Povetkin (16-0-0)
(6) 6- David Haye (22-1-0)
(8) 7- Alexander Dimitrenko (29-0-0)
(9) 8- Sultan Ibragimov (22-1-1)
(NA) 9- Eddie Chambers (34-1-0)
(7) 10- Samuel Peter (30-3-0)

Active- Vitali Klitschko, Eddie Chambers, Samuel Peter (loss)
Out- Oleg Maskaev (10)

Cruiserweight (200lbs)
(1) 1- Tomasz Adamek (37-1-0)
(2) 2- Guillermo Jones (36-3-2)
(3) 3- Steve Cunningham (21-2-0)
(4) 4- Marco Huck (24-1-0)
(5) 5- Jean Marc Mormeck (33-4-0)
(6) 6- O’Neill Bell (26-3-1)
(8) 7- Firat Arslan (29-4-1)
(9) 8- Vadim Tokarev (26-1-1)
(10) 9- Kryzstof Wlodarczyk (41-2-0)
(NA) 10- Giacobbe Fragomeni (26-1-0)

Active- None
Out- Enzo Maccarinelli (loss)

Light Heavyweight (175lbs)
(1) 1- Bernard Hopkins (49-4-1)
(2) 2- Chad Dawson (27-0-0)
(3) 3- Glenn Johnson (49-12-2)
(4) 4-  Antonio Tarver (27-5-0)
(5) 5- Zsolt Erdei (30-0-0)
(6) 6- Clinton Woods (42-4-1)
(7) 7- Hugo Garay (32-3-0)
(8) 8- Roy Jones jnr (52-5-0)
(9) 9- Adrian Diaconu (25-0-0)
(10) 10- Tavoris Cloud (19-0-0)

Active- Roy Jones jnr

Super Middleweight (168lbs)
(1) 1- Mikkel Kessler (41-1-0)
(2) 2- Lucian Bute (24-0-0)
(3) 3- Jermain Taylor (28-2-1)
(4) 4- Carl Froch (24-0-0)
(5) 5- Librado Andrade (27-2-0)
(6) 6- Sakio Bika (27-3-2)
(7) 7- Karoly Balszay (20-0-0)
(8) 8- Dennis Inkin (34-1-0)
(9) 9- Jeff Lacy (24-2-0)
(10) 10- Andre Dirrell (18-0-0)

Active- Lucian Bute, Andre Dirrell
Out- Markus Beyer (10)

Middleweight (160lbs)
(1) 1- Kelly Pavlik (35-1-0)
(2) 2- Arthur Abraham (29-0-0)
(3) 3- Felix Sturm (31-2-1)
(4) 4- Winky Wright (51-4-1)
(5) 5- Anthony Mundine (35-3-0)
(6) 6- Khoren Gevor (30-3-0)
(7) 7- Randy Griffin (24-2-3)
(8) 8- Sebastian Sylvester (29-3-0)
(9) 9- Javier Castillejo (62-8-0)
(10) 10- Amin Asikainen (25-2-0)

Active- Arthur Abraham

Junior Middleweight (154lbs)
(1) 1- Paul Williams (36-1-0)
(2) 2- Vernon Forrest (41-3-0)
(3) 3- Sergei Dzinziruk (36-0-0)
(4) 4- Daniel Santos (32-3-0)
(5) 5- Verno Phillips (42-11-1)
(6) 6- Cory Spinks (36-5-0)
(7) 7- Sergio Manuel Martinez (44-1-1)
(8) 8- Kermit Cintron (30-2-1)
(NA) 9- James Kirkland (25-0-0)
(9) 10- Sergio Mora (21-1-1)

Active- James Kirkland
Out- Alex Bunema (10)

Welterweight (147lbs)
(1) 1- Shane Mosley (46-5-0)
(2) 2- Miguel Cotto (32-1-0)
(3) 3- Andre Berto (24-0-0)
(4) 4- Joshua Clottey (35-2-0)
(5) 5- Carlos Quintana (26-2-0)
(6) 6- Luis Collazo (29-4-0)
(7) 7- Zab Judah (37-6-0)
(8) 8- Mike Jones (17-0-0)
(9) 9- Sebastian Lujan (31-5-2)
(10) 10- Rafal Jackiewicz (33-8-1)

Active- Mike Jones, Sebastian Lujan

Junior Welterweight (140lbs)
(1) 1- Ricky Hatton (45-1-0)
(2) 2- Andreas Kotelnik (30-2-0)
(3) 3- Timothey Bradley (23-0-0)
(4) 4- Kendall Holt (25-2-0)
(5) 5- Ricardo Torres (32-2-0)
(6) 6- Paulie Malignaggi (25-2-0)
(7) 7- Juan Urango (20-1-1)
(8) 8- Junior Witter (37-2-2)
(NA) 9- Victor Ortiz (24-1-1)
(9) 10- Vivian Harris (29-3-1)

Active- Victor Ortiz
Out- Marcos Rene Maidana (10)

Lightweight (135lbs)
(1) 1- Juan Manuel Marquez (50-4-1)
(2) 2- Manny Pacquiao (48-3-2)
(3) 3- Juan Diaz (34-2-0)
(4) 4- Joel Casmayor (36-4-1)
(5) 5- Julio Diaz (36-4-0)
(6) 6- Joan Guzman (29-0-0)
(7) 7- Antonio Pitualua (46-3-0)
(8) 8- Ali Funeka (30-2-2)
(9) 9- David Diaz (34-2-1)
(10) 10- Anthony Peterson (28-0-0)

Active- None

Junior Lightweight (130lbs)
(1) 1- Edwin Valero (24-0-0)
(2) 2- Cassius Baloyi (36-3-1)
(4) 3- Humberto Soto (47-7-2)
(3) 4- Jorge Linares (26-0-0)
(10) 5- Roman Martinez (22-0-1)
(5) 6- Robert Guerrero (22-1-1)
(6) 7- Mzonke Fana (28-4-0)
(7) 8- Malcolm Klassen (23-4-2)
(8) 9- Nicky Cook (29-2-0)
(9) 10- Alex Arthur (26-2-0)

Active- Humberto Soto, Roman Martinez, Robert Guerrero (No Contest), Nicky Cook (loss)

Featherweight (126lbs)
(1) 1- Chris John (42-0-2)
(2) 2- Cristobal Cruz (38-11-1)
(3) 3- Ricardo Juarez (28-4-1)
(4) 4- Steve Luevano (36-1-1)
(5) 5- Jorge Solis (37-1-2)
(NA) 6- Takahiro Aoh (17-1-1)
(6) 7- Thomas Mashaba (20-2-4)
(7) 8- Guty Espadas Jnr (44-7-0)
(8) 9- Mario Santiago (19-1-1)
(10) 10- Yuriorkis Gamboa (14-0-0)

Active- Takahiro Aoh
Out- Oscar Larios (loss)

Junior Featherweight (122lbs)
(1) 1- Israel Vazquez (43-4-0)
(2) 2- Rafael Marquez (37-5-0)
(3) 3- Celestino Caballero (31-2-0)
(4) 4- Juan Manuel Lopez (24-0-0)
(5) 5- Poonsawat Krattindaenggym (37-1-0)
(7) 6- Daniel Ponce de Leon (35-2-0)
(8) 7- Jhonny Gonzalez (40-6-0)
(9) 8- Steve Molitor (28-1-0)
(10) 9- Toshiaki Nishioka (33-4-3)
(NA) 10- Bernard Dunne (28-1-0)

Active- Bernard Dunne
Out- Ricardo Cordoba (loss)

Bantamweight (118lbs)
(1) 1- Hozumi Hasegawa (26-2-0)
(2) 2- Gerry Penalosa (54-6-2)
(NA) 3- Fernando Montiel (39-2-1)
(3) 4- Anselmo Moreno (24-1-1)
(4) 5- Silence Mabuza (22-2-0)
(5) 6- Wladimir Siderenko (21-1-2)
(6) 7- Abner Mares (17-0-0)
(8) 8- Joseph Agebeko (26-1-0)
(9) 9- Yohnny Perez (18-0-0)
(NA) 10- Nehomar Cermeno (19-0-0)

Active- Hozumi Hasegawa, Fernando Montiel, Nehomar Cermeno
Out- Vusi Malinga (loss), Simone Maludrottu (10)

Junior Bantamweight (115lbs)
(1) 1- Vic Darchinyan (32-1-1)
(4) 2- Alexander Munoz (32-3-0)
(5) 3- Nobuo Nashiro (12-1-0)
(6) 4- Z Gorres (29-2-2)
(7) 5- Jorge Arce (51-5-1)
(NA) 6- Jose Lopez (39-7-2)
(NA) 7- Hugo Cazares (28-5-1)
(8) 8- Dimitri Kirilov (29-4-1)
(9) 9- Jose Navarro (26-4-0)
(NA) 10- Kohei Kono (22-4-0)

Active- Z Gorres, Jose Lopez, Hugo Cazares
Out- Fernando Montiel (moved up), Cristian Mijares (moved up), Pramunsak Posuwan (loss)

Flyweight (112lbs)
(1) 1- Nonito Donaire (20-1-0)
(2) 2- Denkaosan Kaovichit (46-1-1)
(3) 3- Daisuke Naito (34-2-3)
(4) 4- Omar Narvaez (28-0-2)
(5) 5- Pongsaklek Wonjongkam (71-3-1)
(6) 6- Koki Kameda (20-0-0)
(7) 7- Takefumi Sakata (33-5-2)
(8) 8- Bernard Inom (19-1-1)
(9) 9- Jose Cesar Miranda (29-3-1)
(10) 10- Brian Viloria (24-2-0)

Active- Koki Kameda

Junior Flyweight (108lbs)
(1) 1- Ivan Calderon (32-0-0)
(2) 2- Edgar Soto (34-5-0)
(3) 3- Ulises Solis (28-1-2)
(7) 4- Giovanni Segura (19-1-1)
(6) 5- Brahim Asloum (23-2-0)
(8) 6- Juan Carlos Reveco (19-1-0)
(5) 7- Cesar Canchila (27-1-0)
(9) 8- Juanito Rubillar (46-11-7)
(10) 9- Omar Nino Romero (27-3-1)
(NA) 10- Nelson Dieppa (25-5-2)

Active- Giovanni Segura, Juan Carlos Reveco, Cesar Canchila (loss)
Out- Cazares (moved up)

Minimumweight (105lbs)
(1) 1- Roman Gonzalez (23-0-0)
(2) 2- Oleydong Sithsamerchai (30-0-0)
(3) 3- Raul Garcia (25-0-1)
(4) 4- Florante Condes (23-4-1)
(6) 5- Donnie Nietes (24-1-3)
(7) 6- Juan Palacios (25-2-0)
(NA) 7- Milan Melindo (18-0-0)
(8) 8- Nkosinathi Joyi (19-0-0)
(5) 9- Muhammad Rachman (62-7-5)
(9) 10- Manuel Vargas (26-3-1)

Active- Oleydong Sithsamerchai, Milan Melindo, Muhammad Rachman (loss)
Out- Katsunari Takayama (10)

Marquez KOs Diaz in war

In a fight that stands head and shoulders above the rest of the field for 2009 fight of the year, World Lightweight Champion Juan Manuel Marquez made his 1st defence a successful one with a 9th round KO win over Juan Diaz. Diaz attacked with his trademark relentless aggression from the bell and continualy backed Marquez against the ropes. Marquez used his excellent counter punches to keep Diaz honest, but it was the former WBA/WBO/IBF champion Diaz who was in control early. Midway through the 2nd round Diaz rocked the champion with a peach of a left hook that would have dropped lesser men and then followed it up with a four punch combination that landed flush on Marquez’s head. Marquez showed the chin and determination of a ring legend and fired straight back, ending the round on even terms. Still, Diaz was in front in a fight that had both men firing away with nearly (sometimes over) 100 punches a round each!

Marquez started to find his range more frequently in the 3rd and 4th rounds. Using a left uppercut to follow his cross, Marquez found his mark whenever Diaz was on the outside. Diaz still had plenty of success by backing up Marquez but the champion seemed to be landing the harder blows. Marquez appeared to either slow down or just take the round off in the 5th, as Diaz outworked the older man. Marquez fought well off the ropes, but was struggling to match the pace of the 23 year old challenger. Diaz cut Marquez over his troublesome right eye in the 6th round and continued to launch a two fisted assault against the champion on the ropes but Marquez never looked in trouble or weakened by the younger mans assault and continued to land heavily with his own right crosses and left uppercuts.

With the scorecards getting wider in favour of Diaz, Marquez stepped up a gear in the 7th and began catching Diaz with incrediblly accurate combinations in the 7th round. Countering Diaz’s jab with his right hand, Marquez used the punch to set up three and four punch combinations that were catching ‘the Baby Bull’ more and more. In the 8th round, Marquez opened a cut on Diaz’s right cheek before rocking Diaz with a blistering right hand towards the end of the round. With Diaz hurt for the first time in the fight, Marquez jumped on him and let his hands go, scoring with combinations to the head and (sometimes) body. Diaz survived the round, but the momentum was with Marquez heading into the late rounds.

Marquez didn’t give Diaz a chance to recover and jumped on him early in the 9th. A counter right hand midway through the round off a Diaz jab again rocked the challenger. Marquez threw and landed a five punch combination which forced Diaz to the deck for the first knockdown of the night. Diaz beat the count but his legs didn’t appear there and Marquez was ready to finish him. Two combinations, the second ending with a flush uppercut put Diaz down and out. The referee didn’t bother with the count and crowned Marquez at 2:40 of the 9th round. With the win, Marquez adds the WBA and WBO titles to his Ring Magazine belt (Casamayor previously held the WBC title but was robbed of it, the man he beat, Diego Corrales, previously held the WBO title as well and the man he beat, Jose Luis Castillo, previously held the IBF belt as well) after former titlist Nate Campbell lost the titles at the scales.

The win also puts Marquez in strong contention for the number one pound for pound spot. While I don’t agree with the ranking, I think it’s definately plausible as I thought Marquez won the fight against Pacquiao as well as his solid competition since the split decision loss to the Phillipino last March. Still, I feel you have to count the fight on the basis of the judges decision, plus Pacquiao had a solid resume’ before Marquez which seems to be forgotten by a lot of his haters. Should Pacquiao dethrone Hatton I don’t think there’ll be any question as to who the top fighter is. Still, a third fight between the two makes huge sense at this point. Can anyone remember anytime where the top two pound for pound fighters in the sport fought one another?

I’m yet to watch the Chris John-Ricardo Juarez fight. It may not happen for a while but when it does I’ll put up my scorecard as I hear it was quite a debatable decision.

(Mar 09) Angry Fight Fan World Boxing Rankings

There are two big absentees from the pound for pound rankings. First of all there was the suspension of Margarito. Due to his suspension, I’m removing him from my rankings until he is either cleared or his suspension is up. The other is Joe Calzaghe who announced his retirement last month and thus will no longer appear in the rankings (until he gets bored and comes back that is). This paves way for Pavlik to re-enter the top ten and I’ve filled out the list with Darchinyan who I think deserves it after effectively cleaning out one of the more competitive divisions in boxing.
The rankings are based on all fights that happened before March 1st 2009, so if there’s a result that happened on March 1st (I’m using boxrec’s calender) then it’ll be included next month. These rankings are my own work and have absolutely no reflection on any ABC rankings or anything else but my own opinion. Please feel free to flame me in the comments section.

Weight Division (weight limit)
(Last Month) Ranking- Fighter (Record)

Pound for Pound 
(1) 1- Manny Pacquiao (48-3-2)
(3) 2- Juan Manuel Marquez (50-4-1)
(4) 3- Bernard Hopkins (49-5-1)
(5) 4- Israel Vazquez (43-4-0)
(6) 5- Shane Mosley (46-5-0)
(7) 6- Rafael Marquez (37-5-0)
(8) 7- Paul Williams (36-1-0)
(9) 8- Ricky Hatton (45-1-0)
(NA) 9- Kelly Pavlik (35-1-0)
(NA) 10- Vic Darchinyan (32-1-1)

Active- Juan Manuel Marquez, Kelly Pavlik, Vic Darchinyan
Out- Joe Calzaghe (retired), Antonio Margarito (suspended)

Heavyweight (no limit)
(1) 1- Wladimir Klitschko (52-3-0)
(2) 2- Vitali Klitschko (36-2-0)
(3) 3- Ruslan Chagaev (25-0-1)
(4) 4- Nicolay Valuev (50-1-0)
(5) 5- Alexander Povetkin (16-0-0)
(6) 6- David Haye (22-1-0)
(7) 7- Samuel Peter (30-2-0)
(8) 8- Alexander Dimitrenko (29-0-0)
(9) 9- Sultan Ibragimov (22-1-1)
(10) 10- Oleg Maskaev (35-6-0)

Active- Ruslan Chagaev

Cruiserweight (200lbs)
(1) 1- Tomasz Adamek (37-1-0)
(2) 2- Guillermo Jones (36-3-2)
(3) 3- Steve Cunningham (21-2-0)
(4) 4- Marco Huck (24-1-0)
(5) 5- Jean Marc Mormeck (33-4-0)
(6) 6- O’Neill Bell (26-3-1)
(7) 7- Enzo Maccarinelli (29-2-0)
(8) 8- Firat Arslan (29-4-1)
(9) 9- Vadim Tokarev (26-1-1)
(10) 10- Kryzstof Wlodarczyk (41-2-0)

Active- Tomasz Adamek

Light Heavyweight (175lbs)
(2) 1- Bernard Hopkins (49-4-1)
(3) 2- Chad Dawson (27-0-0)
(4) 3- Glenn Johnson (49-12-2)
(5) 4-  Antonio Tarver (27-5-0)
(7) 5- Zsolt Erdei (30-0-0)
(6) 6- Clinton Woods (42-4-1)
(8) 7- Hugo Garay (32-3-0)
(9) 8- Roy Jones jnr (52-5-0)
(10) 9- Adrian Diaconu (25-0-0)
(NA) 10- Tavoris Cloud (19-0-0)

Active- Clinton Woods, Glenn Johnson
Out- Joe Calzaghe (retired)

Super Middleweight (168lbs)
(1) 1- Mikkel Kessler (41-1-0)
(2) 2- Lucian Bute (23-0-0)
(3) 3- Jermain Taylor (28-2-1)
(4) 4- Carl Froch (24-0-0)
(6) 5- Librado Andrade (27-2-0)
(7) 6- Sakio Bika (27-3-2)
(8) 7- Karoly Balszay (20-0-0)
(9) 8- Dennis Inkin (34-1-0)
(10) 9- Jeff Lacy (24-2-0)
(NA) 10- Markus Beyer (35-3-1)

Active- None
Out- Anthony Mundine (moved down)

Middleweight (160lbs)
(1) 1- Kelly Pavlik (35-1-0)
(2) 2- Arthur Abraham (28-0-0)
(3) 3- Felix Sturm (31-2-1)
(4) 4- Winky Wright (51-4-1)
(NA) 5- Anthony Mundine (35-3-0)
(5) 6- Khoren Gevor (30-3-0)
(6) 7- Randy Griffin (24-2-3)
(7) 8- Sebastian Sylvester (29-3-0)
(8) 9- Javier Castillejo (62-8-0)
(9) 10- Amin Asikainen (25-2-0)

Active- Kelly Pavlik, Anthony Mundine, Sebastian Sylvester
Out- Daniel Geale (10)

Junior Middleweight (154lbs)
(1) 1- Paul Williams (36-1-0)
(2) 2- Vernon Forrest (41-3-0)
(3) 3- Sergei Dzinziruk (36-0-0)
(4) 4- Daniel Santos (32-3-0)
(6) 5- Verno Phillips (42-11-1)
(7) 6- Cory Spinks (36-5-0)
(5) 7- Sergio Manuel Martinez (44-1-1)
(NA) 8- Kermit Cintron (30-2-1)
(8) 9- Sergio Mora (21-1-1)
(9) 10- Alex Bunema (30-6-2)

Active- Sergio Manuel Martinez (draw), Kermit Cintron (draw)
Out- Joachim Alcine (10)

Welterweight (147lbs)
(1) 1- Shane Mosley (46-5-0)
(3) 2- Miguel Cotto (32-1-0)
(4) 3- Andre Berto (24-0-0)
(5) 4- Joshua Clottey (35-2-0)
(7) 5- Carlos Quintana (26-2-0)
(8) 6- Luis Collazo (29-4-0)
(9) 7- Zab Judah (37-6-0)
(10) 8- Mike Jones (16-0-0)
(NA) 9- Sebastian Lujan (30-5-2)
(NA) 10- Rafal Jackiewicz (33-8-1)

Active- Miguel Cotto, Rafal Jackiewicz
Out- Antonio Margarito (suspended), Kermit Cintron (moved up)

Junior Welterweight (140lbs)
(1) 1- Ricky Hatton (45-1-0)
(2) 2- Andreas Kotelnik (30-2-0)
(3) 3- Timothey Bradley (23-0-0)
(4) 4- Kendall Holt (25-2-0)
(5) 5- Ricardo Torres (32-2-0)
(6) 6- Paulie Malignaggi (25-2-0)
(7) 7- Juan Urango (20-1-1)
(8) 8- Junior Witter (37-2-2)
(9) 9- Vivian Harris (29-3-1)
(10) 10- Marcos Rene Maidana (25-0-0)

Active- Andreas Kotelnik, Marcos Rene Maidana (loss)

Lightweight (135lbs)
(3) 1- Juan Manuel Marquez (50-4-1)
(2) 2- Manny Pacquiao (48-3-2)
(4) 3- Juan Diaz (34-2-0)
(5) 4- Joel Casmayor (36-4-1)
(6) 5- Julio Diaz (36-4-0)
(7) 6- Joan Guzman (29-0-0)
(9) 7- Antonio Pitualua (46-3-0)
(8) 8- Ali Funeka (30-2-2)
(10) 9- David Diaz (34-2-1)
(NA) 10- Anthony Peterson (28-0-0)

Active- Juan Manuel Marquez, Juan Diaz (loss), Ali Funeka (loss)
Out- Nate Campbell (moved up)

Junior Lightweight (130lbs)
(1) 1- Edwin Valero (24-0-0)
(3) 2- Cassius Baloyi (36-3-1)
(4) 3- Jorge Linares (26-0-0)
(5) 4- Humberto Soto (46-7-2)
(6) 5- Robert Guerrero (22-1-1)
(7) 6- Mzonke Fana (28-4-0)
(8) 7- Malcolm Klassen (23-4-2)
(9) 8- Nicky Cook (29-1-0)
(10) 9- Alex Arthur (26-2-0)
(NA) 10- Roman Martinez (21-0-1)

Active- None
Out- Ricardo Juarez (moved down)

Featherweight (126lbs)
(1) 1- Chris John (42-0-2)
(2) 2- Cristobal Cruz (38-11-1)
(NA) 3- Ricardo Juarez (28-4-1)
(3) 4- Steve Luevano (36-1-1)
(4) 5- Jorge Solis (37-1-2)
(5) 6- Thomas Mashaba (20-2-4)
(6) 7- Guty Espadas Jnr (44-7-0)
(7) 8- Mario Santiago (19-1-1)
(8) 9- Oscar Larios (63-6-0)
(9) 10- Yuriorkis Gamboa (14-0-0)

Active- Chris John (draw), Ricardo Juarez (draw), Cristobal Cruz, Yuriorkis Gamboa
Out- Bernabe Concepcion (10)

Junior Featherweight (122lbs)
(1) 1- Israel Vazquez (43-4-0)
(2) 2- Rafael Marquez (37-5-0)
(3) 3- Celestino Caballero (31-2-0)
(4) 4- Juan Manuel Lopez (24-0-0)
(5) 5- Poonsawat Krattindaenggym (37-1-0)
(6) 6- Ricardo Cardoba (34-1-2)
(7) 7- Daniel Ponce de Leon (35-2-0)
(8) 8- Jhonny Gonzalez (40-6-0)
(9) 9- Steve Molitor (28-1-0)
(10) 10- Toshiaki Nishioka (33-4-3)

Active- Poonsawat Krattindaenggym

Bantamweight (118lbs)
(1) 1- Hozumo Hasegawa (25-2-0)
(2) 2- Gerry Penalosa (54-6-2)
(3) 3- Anselmo Moreno (24-1-1)
(4) 4- Silence Mabuza (22-2-0)
(5) 5- Wladimir Siderenko (21-1-2)
(6) 6- Abner Mares (17-0-0)
(7) 7- Vusi Malinga (18-2-1)
(8) 8- Joseph Agebeko (26-1-0)
(9) 9- Yohnny Perez (18-0-0)
(10) 10- Simone Maludrottu (29-2-0)

Active- Gerry Penalosa

Junior Bantamweight (115lbs)
(1) 1- Vic Darchinyan (32-1-1)
(2) 2- Fernando Montiel (38-4-1)
(3) 3- Cristian Mijares (36-4-2)
(4) 4- Alexander Munoz (32-3-0)
(6) 5- Nobuo Nashiro (12-1-0)
(7) 6- Z Gorres (28-2-2)
(5) 7- Jorge Arce (51-5-1)
(8) 8- Dimitri Kirilov (29-4-1)
(9) 9- Jose Navarro (26-4-0)
(10) 10- Pramunsak Posuwan (45-1-1)

Active- Vic Darchinyan, Jorge Arce (loss)

Flyweight (112lbs)
(1) 1- Nonito Donaire (20-1-0)
(2) 2- Denkaosan Kaovichit (46-1-1)
(3) 3- Daisuke Naito (34-2-3)
(5) 4- Omar Narvaez (28-0-2)
(4) 5- Pongsaklek Wonjongkam (71-3-1)
(6) 6- Koki Kameda (19-0-0)
(8) 7- Takefumi Sakata (33-5-2)
(9) 8- Bernard Inom (19-1-1)
(10) 9- Jose Cesar Miranda (29-3-1)
(NA) 10- Brian Viloria (24-2-0)

Active- Omar Narvaez
Out- Rayonta Whitfield (loss)

Junior Flyweight (108lbs)
(1) 1- Ivan Calderon (32-0-0)
(2) 2- Edgar Soto (34-5-0)
(3) 3- Ulises Solis (28-1-2)
(4) 4- Hugo Cazares (26-5-1)
(5) 5- Cesar Canchila (27-1-0)
(6) 6- Brahim Asloum (23-2-0)
(7) 7- Giovanni Segura (19-1-1)
(8) 8- Juan Carlos Reveco (19-1-0)
(9) 9- Juanito Rubillar (46-11-7)
(10) 10- Omar Nino Romero (27-3-1)

Active- None

Minimumweight (105lbs)
(1) 1- Roman Gonzalez (23-0-0)
(2) 2- Oleydong Sithsamerchai (29-0-0)
(3) 3- Raul Garcia (25-0-1)
(4) 4- Florante Condes (23-4-1)
(5) 5- Muhammad Rachman (62-6-5)
(7) 6- Donnie Nietes (24-1-3)
(6) 7- Juan Palacios (25-2-0)
(8) 8- Nkosinathi Joyi (19-0-0)
(10) 9- Manuel Vargas (26-3-1)
(9) 10- Katsunari Takayama (22-3-0)

Active- Roman Gonzalez, Donnie Nietes, Manuel Vargas

March Schedule
7th- Joel Julio vs James Kirkland (154lb)
7th- Juergen Brahmer vs Rachid Kanfouah (European 175lb)
7th- Robert Guerro vs Daud Cino Yordan (130lb)
12th- Hozumi Hasegawa vs Vusi Malinga (WBC 118lb)
12th- Oscar Laios vs Takahiro Aoh (WBC 126lb)
13th- Lucian Bute vs Fulgencio Zuniga (IBF 168lb)
13th- Juan Carlos Reveco vs Wilson Simao (WBA Fedalatin 108lb)
14th- Arthur Abraham vs Lajuan Simon (IBF 160lb)
14th- Nicky Cook vs Roman Martinez (WBO 130lb)
14th- Cristian Mijares vs Nehomar Cermeno (WBA interim 118lb)
14th- Marco Antonio Barrera vs Amir Khan (135lb)
14th- Oleg Maskaev vs Rich Boruff (Heavy)
14th- Enzo Maccaranelli vs Ola Afolabi (200lb)
20th- Celestino Caballero vs Jeffrey Mathebula (WBA/IBF 122lb)
20th- Junior Witter vs Gianluca Branco (European 140lb)
21st- Vitali Klitschko vs Juan Carlos Gomez (WBC Heavy)
21st- Ricardo Cordoba vs Bernard Dunne (WBA interim 122lb)
21st- Roy Jones Jnr vs Omar Sheika (175lb)
22nd- Ulises Solis vs Brian Viloria (IBF 108lb)
22nd- Nonito Donaire vs Raul Martinez (IBF 112lb)
24th- Roberto Vasquez vs Hugo Cazares (115lb)
27th- Kryzstof Wlodarczyk vs Giacobbe Fragomeni (WBC 200lb)
27th- Samuel Peter vs Eddie Chambers (Heavy)
27th- Yasutaka Kuroki vs Junichiro Kaneda (OPBF 105lb)
28th- Humberto Soto vs Albert Davis (WBC 130lb)
28th- Fernando Montiel vs Diego Oscar Silva (WBO interim 118lb)

(Feb 09) Angry Fight Fan Boxing World Rankings

I’ve managed to set this up with a system that will allow me to update these monthly without too much trouble. Some interesting action this month; Mosley cracked the pound for pound list for the first time since he lost to Winky Wright back in 2004. The Welterweight division is very interesting now with the top three guys all having split wins over another. Hopefully, if Margarito gets cleared of his hand wraps incident (any suspension and I’ll probably drop him from the rankings completely), Margarito takes on Cotto and Mosley fights Clottey like what has been proposed and the winners meet later in the year. Whatever fight comes out of that series of matches will be great. I’ve also included a schedule of what significant fights are on next month and the lightweights again are all fighting in the same month which should move the rankings around a lot.

Could someone do me a huge favour and tell me how to turn off emoticons in my posts. It looks really fucking stupid having a sunglasses smiley in my rankings because the guy was ranked 8th in last months rankings.

The rankings are based on all fights that happened before February 1st 2009, so if there’s a result that happened on February 1st (I’m using boxrec’s calender) then it’ll be included next month. These rankings are my own work and have absolutely no reflection on any ABC rankings or anything else but my own opinion. Please feel free to flame me in the comments section.

Weight Division (weight limit)
(Last Month) Ranking- Fighter (Record)

Pound for Pound 
(1) 1- Manny Pacquiao (48-3-2)
(2) 2- Joe Calzaghe (46-0-0)
(3) 3- Juan Manuel Marquez (49-4-1)
(4) 4- Bernard Hopkins (49-5-1)
(5) 5- Israel Vazquez (43-4-0)
(NA) 6- Shane Mosley (46-5-0)
(6) 7- Rafael Marquez (37-5-0)
(7) 8- Paul Williams (36-1-0)
(9) 9- Ricky Hatton (45-1-0)
(8) 10- Antonio Margarito (37-6-0)

Active- Shane Mosley, Antonio Margarito (loss)
Out- Kelly Pavlik (10)

Heavyweight (no limit)
(1) 1- Wladimir Klitschko (52-3-0)
(2) 2- Vitali Klitschko (36-2-0)
(3) 3- Ruslan Chagaev (24-0-1)
(4) 4- Nicolay Valuev (50-1-0)
(5) 5- Alexander Povetkin (16-0-0)
(6) 6- David Haye (22-1-0)
(7) 7- Samuel Peter (30-2-0)
(8) 8- Alexander Dimitrenko (29-0-0)
(9) 9- Sultan Ibragimov (22-1-1)
(10) 10- Oleg Maskaev (35-6-0)

Active- None

Cruiserweight (200lbs)
(1) 1- Tomasz Adamek (36-1-0)
(2) 2- Guillermo Jones (36-3-2)
(3) 3- Steve Cunningham (21-2-0)
(5) 4- Marco Huck (24-1-0)
(4) 5- Jean Marc Mormeck (33-4-0)
(6) 6- O’Neill Bell (26-3-1)
(7) 7- Enzo Maccarinelli (29-2-0)
(8) 8- Firat Arslan (29-4-1)
(9) 9- Vadim Tokarev (26-1-1)
(10) 10- Kryzstof Wlodarczyk (41-2-0)

Active- Marco Huck

Light Heavyweight (175lbs)
(1) 1- Joe Calzaghe (46-0-0)
(2) 2- Bernard Hopkins (49-4-1)
(3) 3- Chad Dawson (27-0-0)
(4) 4- Glenn Johnson (48-12-2)
(5) 5-  Antonio Tarver (27-5-0)
(7) 6- Zsolt Erdei (30-0-0)
(6) 7- Clinton Woods (41-4-1)
(8) 8- Hugo Garay (32-3-0)
(9) 9- Roy Jones jnr (52-5-0)
(10) 10- Adrian Diaconu (25-0-0)

Active- Zsolt Erdei

Super Middleweight (168lbs)
(1) 1- Mikkel Kessler (41-1-0)
(2) 2- Lucian Bute (23-0-0)
(3) 3- Jermain Taylor (28-2-1)
(4) 4- Carl Froch (24-0-0)
(5) 5- Anthony Mundine (34-3-0)
(7) 6- Librado Andrade (27-2-0)
(8) 7- Sakio Bika (27-3-2)
(NA) 8- Karoly Balszay (20-0-0)
(6) 9- Dennis Inkin (34-1-0)
(9) 10- Jeff Lacy (24-2-0)

Active- Karoly Balszay, Dennis Inkin (loss)
Out- Markus Beyer (10)

Middleweight (160lbs)
(1) 1- Kelly Pavlik (34-1-0)
(2) 2- Arthur Abraham (28-0-0)
(3) 3- Felix Sturm (31-2-1)
(4) 4- Winky Wright (51-4-1)
(5) 5- Khoren Gevor (30-3-0)
(6) 6- Randy Griffin (24-2-3)
(7) 7- Sebastian Sylvester (29-3-0)
(8) 8- Javier Castillejo (62-8-0)
(9) 9- Amin Asikainen (25-2-0)
(10) 10- Daniel Geale (20-0-0)

Active- None

Junior Middleweight (154lbs)
(1) 1- Paul Williams (36-1-0)
(2) 2- Vernon Forrest (41-3-0)
(3) 3- Sergei Dzinziruk (36-0-0)
(4) 4- Daniel Santos (32-3-0)
(5) 5- Sergio Manuel Martinez (44-1-1)
(6) 6- Verno Phillips (42-11-1)
(7) 7- Cory Spinks (36-5-0)
(8) 8- Sergio Mora (21-1-1)
(9) 9- Alex Bunema (30-6-2)
(10) 10- Joachim Alcine (30-1-0)

Active- None

Welterweight (147lbs)
(3) 1- Shane Mosley (46-5-0)
(1) 2- Antonio Margarito (37-5-0)
(2) 3- Miguel Cotto (32-1-0)
(5) 4- Andre Berto (24-0-0)
(4) 5- Joshua Clottey (35-2-0)
(6) 6- Kermit Cintron (30-2-0)
(7) 7- Carlos Quintana (26-2-0)
(8) 8- Luis Collazo (29-4-0)
(9) 9- Zab Judah (37-6-0)
(10) 10- Mike Jones (16-0-0)

Active- Shane Mosley, Andre Berto, Antonio Margarito (loss), Luis Collazo (loss)

Junior Welterweight (140lbs)
(1) 1- Ricky Hatton (45-1-0)
(2) 2- Andreas Kotelnik (30-2-0)
(3) 3- Timothey Bradley (23-0-0)
(4) 4- Kendall Holt (25-2-0)
(5) 5- Ricardo Torres (32-2-0)
(6) 6- Paulie Malignaggi (25-2-0)
(8) 7- Juan Urango (20-1-1)
(7) 8- Junior Witter (37-2-2)
(9) 9- Vivian Harris (29-3-1)
(NA) 10- Marcos Rene Maidana (25-0-0)

Active- Juan Urango
Out- Herman Ngoudjou (loss)

Lightweight (135lbs)
(1) 1- Nate Campbell (32-5-1)
(2) 2- Manny Pacquiao (48-3-2)
(3) 3- Juan Manuel Marquez (49-4-1)
(4) 4- Juan Diaz (34-1-0)
(5) 5- Joel Casmayor (36-4-1)
(6) 6- Julio Diaz (36-4-0)
(7) 7- Joan Guzman (29-0-0)
(8) 8- Ali Funeka (30-1-2)
(9) 9- Antonio Pitualua (46-3-0)
(10) 10- David Diaz (34-2-1)

Active- None

Junior Lightweight (130lbs)
(1) 1- Edwin Valero (24-0-0)
(2) 2- Ricardo Juarez (28-4-0)
(3) 3- Cassius Baloyi (36-3-1)
(4) 4- Jorge Linares (26-0-0)
(5) 5- Humberto Soto (46-7-2)
(NA) 6- Robert Guerrero (22-1-1)
(6) 7- Mzonke Fana (28-4-0)
(7) 8- Malcolm Klassen (23-4-2)
(8) 9- Nicky Cook (29-1-0)
(9) 10- Alex Arthur (26-2-0)

Active- Robert Guerrero
Out- Roman Martinez (10)

Featherweight (126lbs)
(1) 1- Chris John (42-0-1)
(3) 2- Cristobal Cruz (37-11-1)
(4) 3- Steve Luevano (36-1-1)
(7) 4- Jorge Solis (37-1-2)
(5) 5- Thomas Mashaba (20-2-4)
(6) 6- Guty Espadas Jnr (44-7-0)
(8) 7- Mario Santiago (19-1-1)
(9) 8- Oscar Larios (63-6-0)
(NA) 9- Yuriorkis Gamboa (13-0-0)
(NA) 10- Bernabe Concepcion (28-1-1)

Active- Jorge Solis, Yuriorkis Gamboa
Out- Robert Guerrero (moved up), Hiroyuki Enoki (10)

Junior Featherweight (122lbs)
(1) 1- Israel Vazquez (43-4-0)
(2) 2- Rafael Marquez (37-5-0)
(3) 3- Celestino Caballero (31-2-0)
(4) 4- Juan Manuel Lopez (24-0-0)
(5) 5- Poonsawat Krattindaenggym (36-1-0)
(6) 6- Ricardo Cardoba (34-1-2)
(7) 7- Daniel Ponce de Leon (35-2-0)
(8) 8- Jhonny Gonzalez (40-6-0)
(9) 9- Steve Molitor (28-1-0)
(NA) 10- Toshiaki Nishioka (33-4-3)

Active- Toshiaki Nishioka
Out- Wethya Sakmuangklang (loss)

Bantamweight (118lbs)
(1) 1- Hozumo Hasegawa (25-2-0)
(2) 2- Gerry Penalosa (53-6-2)
(3) 3- Anselmo Moreno (24-1-1)
(4) 4- Silence Mabuza (22-2-0)
(5) 5- Wladimir Siderenko (21-1-2)
(6) 6- Abner Mares (17-0-0)
(7) 7- Vusi Malinga (18-2-1)
(8) 8- Joseph Agebeko (26-1-0)
(9) 9- Yohnny Perez (18-0-0)
(10) 10- Simone Maludrottu (29-2-0)

Active- None

Junior Bantamweight (115lbs)
(1) 1- Vic Darchinyan (31-1-1)
(2) 2- Fernando Montiel (38-4-1)
(3) 3- Cristian Mijares (36-4-2)
(4) 4- Alexander Munoz (32-3-0)
(5) 5- Jorge Arce (51-4-1)
(6) 6- Nobuo Nashiro (12-1-0)
(7) 7- Z Gorres (28-2-2)
(8) 8- Dimitri Kirilov (29-4-1)
(9) 9- Jose Navarro (26-4-0)
(10) 10- Pramunsak Posuwan (45-1-1)

Active- None

Flyweight (112lbs)
(1) 1- Nonito Donaire (20-1-0)
(2) 2- Denkaosan Kaovichit (46-1-1)
(3) 3- Daisuke Naito (34-2-3)
(4) 4- Pongsaklek Wonjongkam (71-3-1)
(5) 5- Omar Narvaez (28-0-2)
(6) 6- Koki Kameda (19-0-0)
(7) 7- Rayonta Whitfield (22-0-0)
(8) 8- Takefumi Sakata (33-5-2)
(9) 9- Bernard Inom (19-1-1)
(10) 10- Jose Cesar Miranda (29-3-1)

Active- Pongsaklek Wonjongkam

Junior Flyweight (108lbs)
(1) 1- Ivan Calderon (32-0-0)
(2) 2- Edgar Soto (34-5-0)
(3) 3- Ulises Solis (28-1-2)
(4) 4- Hugo Cazares (26-5-1)
(5) 5- Cesar Canchila (27-1-0)
(6) 6- Brahim Asloum (23-2-0)
(7) 7- Giovanni Segura (19-1-1)
(8) 8- Juan Carlos Reveco (19-1-0)
(9) 9- Juanito Rubillar (46-11-7)
(10) 10- Omar Nino Romero (27-3-1)

Active- None

Minimumweight (105lbs)
(1) 1- Roman Gonzalez (22-0-0)
(2) 2- Oleydong Sithsamerchai (29-0-0)
(3) 3- Raul Garcia (25-0-1)
(4) 4- Florante Condes (23-4-1)
(5) 5- Muhammad Rachman (62-6-5)
(6) 6- Juan Palacios (25-2-0)
(7) 7- Donnie Nietes (23-1-3)
(8) 8- Nkosinathi Joyi (19-0-0)
(9) 9- Katsunari Takayama (22-3-0)
(10) 10- Manuel Vargas (25-3-1)

Active- None

February Schedule
6th- Chris Henry vs Yusef Mack (NABA/NABF 175lb)
6th- Andre Ward vs Henry Buchanan (NABF 168lb)
7th- Vic Darchinyan vs Jorge Arce (IBF/WBA/WBC 115lb)
7th- Andreas Kotelnik vs Marcos Rene Maidana (WBA 140lb)
7th- Ruslan Chagaev vs Carl Drummond (WBA Heavy)
7th- Omar Narvaez vs Rayonta Whitfield (WBO 112lb)
7th- Almazbek Raiymkulov vs Antonio DeMarco (135lb)
11th- Anthony Mundine vs Shannan Taylor (160lb)
14th- Nate Campbell vs Ali Funeka (IBF/WBO 135lb)
14th- Sergio Gabriel Martinez vs Kermit Cintron (WBC interim 154lb)
14th- Cristobal Cruz vs Cyril Thomas (IBF 126lb)
14th- Manuel Vargas vs Walter Tello (WBO interim 105lb)
14th- Alfredo Angulo vs Ricardo Mayorga (160lb)
14th- Clinton Woods vs Elvir Muriqi (175lb)
20th- Breidis Prescott vs Humberto Toledo (135lb)
21st- Kelly Pavlik vs Marco Antonio Rubio (Ring/WBC/WBO 160lb)
21st- Miguel Cotto vs Michael Jennings (WBA 147lb)
21st- Matt Skelton vs Martin Rogan (Commonwealth Heavyweight)
21st- Anthony Peterson vs Edner Cherry (135lb)
27th- Tomasz Adamek vs Jonathon Banks (Ring/IBF 200lb)
27th- Glenn Johnson vs Daniel Judah (175lb)
27th- Rendall Munroe vs Kiko Martinez (European 122lb)
28th- Juan Manuel Marquez vs Juan Diaz (Ring 135lb)
28th- Chris John vs Rocky Juarez (WBA 126lb)
28th- Roman Gonzalez vs Francisco Rosas (WBA 105lb)
28th- Donnie Nietes vs Erik Ramirez (WBO 105lb)
28th- Cesar Canchila vs Giovanni Segura (WBA interim 108lb)
28th- Sebastian Sylvester vs Gaentano Nespro (160lb)
28th- Rafal Jackiewicz vs Luciano Abis (European 147lb)

Boxing Breakdown: Berto vs Collazo

2009 for Boxing fans officially kicks off on Saturday (Sunday for us Aussies) with a clash for the WBC Welterweight title. With the Boxing World awaiting next weekends bout between Shane Mosley and Antonio Margarito for the right to call themself the top fighter at 147lbs, an interesting fight takes place this weekend in the same division with WBC Champion Andre Berto will put his title on the line against former WBA champion Luis Collazo. There’s a lot of hype around Berto and some are predicting this to be his coming out party where he will announce himself as one of the top dogs in one of boxings glamour divisions. However, Collazo should not be underestimated as he gave both Shane Mosley and Ricky Hatton (especially Hatton) hard fought fights in losing efforts in his only two big fights of his career.

Andre Berto
Berto had an accomplished amatuer career where he won the National Golden Gloves titles twice, won a bronze medal for the United States at the 2003 World Amatuer Championships and represented Haiti in the 2004 Athens Olympics. Berto quickly rose up the ranks as a young prospect, winning his first 15 fights inside his first two years as a professional. After some good wins early in 2007, Berto faced his first real test against tough veteran Cosme Rivera. After surviving a 6th round knockdown, Berto again took control of the fight and pounded out a 10 round unanimous decision against the rugged Rivera.
Next up was another tough fighter in David Estrada on the Pavlik-Taylor I undercard. Estrada had taken Shane Mosley the distance and gone 10 rounds with Kermit Cintron prior to this fight. After a hard fought fight in which Berto was in control of, he ended the fight with a barrage of punches in the 11th round making him the mandatory challenger for Floyd Mayweather’s WBC title and Kermit Cintron’s IBF title. Nine months later he got his shot at Mayweather’s title (not against Mayweather as he had retired) taking on and defeating Miguel Rodriguez for the vacant title. In his last outing, Berto defeated durable veteran Steve Forbes over 12 rounds to retain his title, bringing his record to a perfect 23-0-0 (19 KOs).
Berto is still a young fighter and has plenty of room to improve which is credit to his natural ability that he can win a world title without reaching his full potential. Berto carries quick hands, has decent reflexes and above average power. There really isn’t anything that Berto does that I would call ‘special’ in terms of what great boxers have done in the past. His handspeed can be blistering and his power can look to be deadly but he doesn’t have the speed that a Mayweather has that dazzles you or the power that a Pavlik has that makes you think ‘oh fuck!’ Basically, Berto does everything well but not to the point where he really stands out in one particular area.

Luis Collazo
Luis Collazo won the WBA ‘regular’ title back in 2005 with a split decision win over Jose Rivera. After battering Miguel Angel Gonzalez in his only successful defence of the title he was picked as a sort of ‘stay busy big fight’ by Ricky Hatton and took his oppurtunity. After getting dropped in the opening seconds, Collazo outboxed the 140lb champion for much of the very evenly fought contest and even had Hatton hurt a few times in the later rounds. After 12 close rounds Hatton was awarded a controversial split decision and Collazo’s WBA title (which by then was elevated to the normal title after the sanctioning bodies tried to fuck Carlos Baldomir up the arse and ended up with their dicks covered in shit). Collazo then dropped a 12 round decision to Shane Mosley in a fight that was a lot closer then the judges scored it (although Mosley was the clear winner) for the WBC interim title in February of 2007. Since then he has had a lot of trouble getting decent opposition in the ring, fighting only twice in the last two years.
Collazo is one of the more underrated fighters in boxing today. For someone who gave Mosley and Hatton as much trouble as he did, he really doesn’t get the credit he deserves. It might be the fact that he has an awkward style which is further awkwafied by the fact that he’s a southpaw. It might be the fact that he has a long reach as far as welterweights go which makes him one of those pricks who people don’t want to spar let alone fight. Either way, Collazo is a good boxer with decent power (a lot better then his 14/29 KO ratio suggests) who is hard to hit cleanly and makes anyone he fights look bad.

The Gameplans
Berto has to fight patiently in this fight. If he tries to rush and get Collazo out of there quick he’s going to play right into his hands. He has to make Collazo throw punches to open him up and not let him sit back and counter punch. Berto will have a big edge in speed and power in this fight but with Collazo’s reach advantage and awkward southpaw style a lot of it will be negated so Berto will have to show patience and pick his shots. The other thing Berto should do is work the body early in the fight to make Collazo’s later rounds harder then they’ll already be because of his ring rust.
Collazo has to do his best to frustrate his inexperienced opponent. Despite being the challenger, Collazo has been in with the far better guys and this will work to his advantage if Berto has trouble with his long arms and southpaw jab. Collazo has to make Berto miss and counter him and put some doubts into his mind if he’s going to win this fight. Collazo will definately have to start fast in this fight because logic suggests with his lack of ring time that he’ll fade down the stretch whereas Berto will be in good shape for 12 rounds.

Prediction
First of all I have to say Berto has shown kahunas the size of bowling balls for taking on someone like Collazo. He’s on the verge of really entering the big time and a guy like Collazo could make him look very bad which will take some of the shine off him or even beat him so win, lose or draw, full credit to Berto for taking on Collazo. Despite my high thinking of Collazo, I think Berto will win a close but comfortable enough unanimous decision in an awkward fight. The simple facts are Berto has the better handspeed and has fought 14 times in the last three years as opposed to Collazo’s five fights. I don’t think it will be pretty and I think Berto will look ordinary at times but his edge in speed and Collazo’s likely ring rust will be the deciding factors down the stretch. After an even first six-eight rounds, Berto should take over and run away with the fight on the cards. Andre Berto by unanimous decision.

2009 looking good for Boxing fans

A number of good fights are currently in negotiations for later in 2009 to add to the already impressive lineup of quality boxing matches we’ve got on so far this year. Pound for Pound king Manny Pacquiao will indeed face Ricky Hatton for the Brit’s legitimate claim to being the World Champion at the Junior Welterweight limit. The fight will take place on May 2nd in Las Vegas after earlier talks of the fight taking place in Dubai were squashed. It really would have been interesting to see what sort of an appearance Hatton’s fans would have made if they had to travel to Dubai.

Another quality fight that is in the works is the return of former undisputed Junior Middleweight Champion Ronald ‘Winky’ Wright who will return to the ring for the first time since July 2007 to face pound for pound ranked fighter and current WBO interim Junior Middleweight Champion Paul Williams. The fight is set to take place on April 11th at the Middleweight limit. Wright really has his work cut out for him facing someone as dangerous as Williams in his first fight for nearly two years but with his impregnable defence he could frustrate Williams and outbox him if he can fight near his best.

The other good fight I’m hearing about is Kendall Holt vs Timothey Bradley for the WBC and WBO Junior Welterweight titles. This is a great fight between two youngish fighters and will likely determine who the next legitimate challenger is for Ricky Hatton (that’s if Hatton gets by Pacquiao). This fight is currently set to take place in April, probably the 4th although I haven’t heard whether or not this fight has been officially signed. All three of these fights are quality matchups, and so far the boxing lineup looks good through til early May with quality fights happening every other weekend:

17th January- Andre Berto vs Luis Collazo (WBC 147lbs)
24th January- Antonio Margarito vs Shane Mosley (WBA 147lbs)
7th February- Vic Darchinyan vs Jorge Arce (WBA-WBC-IBF 115lbs)
14th February- Nate Campbell vs Ali Funeka (WBA-IBF-WBO 135lbs)
21st February- Pavlik v Rubio/Cotto v Jennings (Ring 160lbs/WBO 147lbs)
28th February- Juan Diaz vs Juan Manuel Marquez (Ring 135lbs)
14th March- Chad Dawson vs Antonio Tarver (okay, not all of them are good)
15th March- Fernando Montiel vs Nonito Donaire (WBO 115lbs)
4th April- Timothey Bradley vs Kendall Holt (WBC-WBO 140lbs)
11th April- Paul Williams vs Winky Wright
2nd May- Ricky Hatton vs Manny Pacquiao (Ring 140lbs)

So basically there’s boxing every week from January 17th right through until March 15th minus two weekends (Jan 31st and March 7th). The good thing about those two weekends is that there’s UFC PPV cards on those dates and one of those weekends is BJ Penn vs Georges St Pierre. Throw in the odd K-1 event and DREAM card plus the odd not so major boxing match and I might have to change my name to Aroused Fight Fan.