Look at it this way: There are tiers. In some classes, No. 4 and No. 10 aren’t separated by much. In others, they are.

Since I’m a giant nerd, I think of the World of Warcraft gear rankings, which are color-coded, and work sort of like this.

Orange = “Legendary”
Purple = “Epic”
Blue = “Rare”
Green = “Uncommon”

And then there’s white for Common and grey for Poor. Nobody in a top ten is less than a “green.”

In practice, this would make for something like this at 168, IMO:

Purple: Kessler, Bute
Blue: Froch, Abraham, Bika, Taylor, Dirrell
Green: Ward, Andrade, Stieglitz, and then some more guys like Balzsay, Inkin, etc.

At 140, you would have:

Orange: Pacquiao
Blue: Bradley, Hatton
Green: Maidana, Campbell, Holt, Khan, Urango, Alexander, Peterson

At 147:

Orange: Mayweather
Purple: Mosley, Cotto
Blue: Clottey, Berto
Green: Collazo, Quintana, Hlatshwayo, Aydin, Judah

Some greens are better than others, same for blues and purples, but the “tier” system works for this, and I think explains that just because I might have Froch #3 and Dirrell #7, I see them as equals, really, same for Ward and Andrade, though I think Ward beats Andrade.

As for resume: It does matter some to me, it’s just not THE end-all of the discussion, and often is very secondary. Really, SMW is amazingly interesting right now with the Super Six coming, because the rankings there will shake up a LOT, and it’ll happen because of fights between top ten fighters instead of fights where one guy doesn’t look so good against someone, so he might drop out. Allan Green is juuuust outside the top ten at 168, too, and usually I’d probably pick him over Stieglitz, but Green talks more than he proves much of anything, and Stieglitz beat Balzsay his last time out. They’re on the same level, but in that situation I give Stieglitz the slight nod over Green.

With a thing like PW at middleweight, I really have no doubts he beats everyone in that division besides Pavlik, and he could well beat Kelly. I just see Pavlik as the only serious challenge for Williams at 160, even though he’s only 2-0 there with one notable win. Resumes in boxing are always arguable, so it’s hard to really assign any specific value.

I know he went away for so long, and he’s getting up there, but I personally can’t rate Wlad over Vitali. It was Wlad who got KTFO’d by Corrie Sanders, and it was Vitali who destroyed the same fighter. If Mayweather, who hasn’t fought a welter since 2006, can be rated higher at welter than Mosley who layed out Margarito this year, then why shouldn’t Vitali be considered #1 at HW?

I still don’t understand how Mosley gets ranked ahead of Cotto in these lists…