Tomasz Adamek's domination of Andrew Golota and intention to stay at heavyweight moves him into Bad Left Hook's rankings in a new division. (Photo via espn-i.starwave.com)

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A few more tweaks to the divisional rankings today, and there'll be more next week with some big fights coming up.

Divisions Affected: Heavyweight, Cruiserweight, Bantamweight

Heavyweight: For the time being, Tomasz Adamek is still the reigning, real world champion at cruiserweight. But his October domination of Andrew Golota and his stated intentions to stay up there with the big boys means that's probably going to be short-lived. Adamek says he wants to fight the Klitschkos, and thinks he'll be ready in about a year. In the meantime, there are plenty of interesting opportunities for him, though he might have to base himself in Europe again in the short term to take full advantage of what's out there. I think one interesting idea might be a bout with Alexander Dimitrenko, whose size (6'7", 250ish, 83" reach) matches up to Wladimir and Vitali even if his skill doesn't. Dimitrenko was outboxed in July by Eddie Chambers, who isn't any bigger than Adamek.

I'm also not saying that Adamek's win over Golota is any huge deal, because Golota is an all-time great crumbler. Once met with resistance, Golota has reacted in any number of ways over his career, but now he's too old and toned down to heavy bag a guy in the junk or try to eat him. Now he just falls apart like any cowardly lion. But Golota also still moves pretty well, and Adamek just flat-out torched him. Having watched what Adamek did with him, I think the same fate would await many of the heavyweights, and certainly Samuel Peter, who falls out of the top ten with Adamek coming in at No. 9. Peter is powerful, but he's another guy Eddie Chambers beat, and he hasn't looked good against a truly strong opponent in a long time now. Adamek has always been tougher than hell, and while there are certainly guys at heavyweight with bigger punches than he's taken in his career, I don't see him being any easy mark for anyone besides the Klitschkos, which is the standing of just about everyone else in the division anyway.

Cruiserweight: Adamek moving up means Steve Cunningham takes the top spot, 3-10 bump up a spot each, and Matt Godfrey -- who will fight Cunningham for the vacant IBF title in the first quarter of 2010 -- enters in the final spot. Many would have already had Godfrey ranked anyway.

Bantamweight: Entering Saturday night, I had Joseph Agbeko at No. 2 and Yonnhy Perez at No. 6. After Perez proved out for absolute certain with a tremendous win in a fantastic fight, Perez goes all the way up to No. 2, and with what he showed on Saturday, I really think this is a guy that could do some serious damage before he's done. He's not the stereotype of a Colombian brawler at all. Yes, he threw his hands a ton, and yes, he showed a blatant disregard for defense at certain points. But he also showed a magnificent chin in taking some huge shots from Agbeko and never backing down, and he fought with utter fearlessness against a hell of a good opponent. I'd give Perez a legitimate shot against Hozumi Hasegawa, No. 1 in the division and in my pound-for-pound top ten. I like Agbeko a lot, and Perez beat him at his own game.

Agbeko dips, but only down to No. 4, just behind Hasegawa, Perez and a steady Anselmo Moreno. Moreno made a successful fifth defense of his WBA title on October 9, beating a guy he should have beaten (Jorge Otero) and doing it how he should have (TKO-6). Moreno has become one of the most overlooked top fighters out there today. Bantamweight has emerged as one of the best divisions in the sport over the last couple of years, and its top four stacks up pretty well with just about any other class. I really think only welterweight (Mayweather, Mosley, Cotto, Clottey) holds a truly significant advantage.

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Arthur Abraham's brutal knockout of Jermain Taylor moves him up one spot at 168 pounds in the Bad Left Hook divisional rankings. (MICHAEL GOTTSCHALK/AFP/Getty Images)

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Now that everything's in one place, it'll be easier to do quick and dirty updates to the BLH boxing rankings, and I figure after most weekends we'll have something to change here or there. This could become a bit of a Sunday tradition.

Divisions Affected: Cruiserweight, Super Middleweight, Featherweight, Flyweight

Cruiserweight: Yoan Pablo Hernandez (20-1, 11 KO) moves in to the No. 10 spot, where Enad Licina had been. Hernandez beat Licina by a pretty wide decision in Berlin on the Abraham-Taylor undercard, and only has the one loss on his sheet, a stoppage against powerful Wayne Braithwaite in 2008. At 6'4", the Cuban Hernandez could wreak havoc on the division if he kicks his career into a new gear.

Super Middleweight: The two big fights obviously change some things at 168. With the Froch-Dirrell fight a heated debate for the foreseeable future, this is as good a time as any to explain how something like this can affect the rankings. Going in, I had Froch at No. 3 and Dirrell at No. 7. I, personally, feel Dirrell won the fight convincingly. The ringside judges, who matter, did not. Unless it's a case like Casamayor-Santa Cruz or Lewis-Holyfield I, though, I don't see a reason to "punish" the winner. Froch does drop to No. 4, but that's a combination of his skin of the teeth win and Arthur Abraham's beatdown of Jermain Taylor just pushing him up from 4 to 3.

Instead of "punishing" Froch, I simply don't punish Dirrell, who proved to be at least as good as I already thought he was, if not a bit better. Despite the first L on his record as a professional, Dirrell actually moves up from 7 to 6.

And then there's Jermain Taylor. He's out of the top ten, slipping from No. 6 to around No. 13 or so if I went that far. This division is loaded with good, competitive fighters, most of which I think have the power to knock him out. His punch resistance is going, I believe, and his natural gifts just aren't enough to carry him. In moves Allan Green to the No. 10 spot; and yes, I would pick Green over Taylor every day and twice on Sunday at this point. Karoly Balzsay and Denis Inkin are also ahead of Taylor in my mind.

Featherweight: Mario Santiago drops a spot for an eight-round SD in Texas over journeyman Morris Chule (11-8-2, 8 KO). What's most odd about that fight is that Chule had never fought in America before. The Kenyan has fought in his home country, and in the Philippines, Uganda, Hungary, Russia, and Kazakhstan, but never in America. Apparently the handlers for Santiago felt this is the sort of talent you can only fly in -- surely there's nobody as qualified knocking around in Texas, right? Anyway, the one spot drop isn't a big deal; I think there's plenty of good reasons to re-evaluate guys from fight to fight and not just leave them in one spot in a rankings chart because that's where they were before, and it's getting further and further removed from Santiago's spirited draw with Steven Luevano. Santiago did just sign a three-year deal with Top Rank, though, so hopefully his career actually starts moving again. He's stagnating badly.

Flyweight: Raul Martinez stays in the rankings and nobody moves, but it's worth noting that Martinez fought this weekend at just under the bantamweight limit. It was more or less a stay busy/rebound fight, so we'll see what his intentions are. For now, he stays here.

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Yuriorkis Gamboa is shooting up the featherweight rankings. (Photo by Chris Farina / Top Rank)

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I decided to spend too much time putting together division-by-division top tens, plus the pound-for-pound top 20 from September on the same page. It's not a post, technically, so there's nowhere on the page itself for discussion, and since discussion is what drives this site, this post is meant to be a hub for that.

These rankings are not meant to be definitive, just yet another set of top tens to put into the machine. They are but one man's opinion, after all. Fighters that are inactive for one year will not be ranked unless they have a fight currently scheduled. Ring Magazine champions are not automatically ranked No. 1 in their division, but it helps mightily. Some fighters who are about to move up a division will be ranked in the division they're moving into, others may not. It all just depends on the fighter and their broader intentions. Not all fights that are listed in the upcoming sections are concrete, and many are speculative, but look like they will be made.

These are just rankings, nothing more. They're not the most serious thing in the world. Hope you enjoy looking through, and with the scattershot strawweight division especially, I can only say I did my best.

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Enjoy, discuss, share your own rankings for as many divisions as you wish, and thanks for reading.

Vitali Klitschko's dominant win over Chris Arreola keeps him steady near the top of the heavyweight division. Some will even argue he's better than his brother, Wladimir. (MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images)

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Bad Left Hook Heavyweight Rankings

The truth remains this at heavyweight: It's a two-horse race, and those horses aren't competing. Whether you feel it's Ring world champion Wladimir Klitschko as the true top dog or his older brother, Vitali Klitschko, your pick is one of the two brothers or you're insane. I go with Wladimir, because for as much talk as there has been of how dominant Vitali has been since his comeback last fall, Wladimir has been that dominant during the same timeframe against comparable opposition, and he was doing it while Vitali was out. Wladimir has barely lost a round dating back to his 2006 fight with Chris Byrd. That's a run of eight contests, including a unification fight with Sultan Ibragimov last year, and a fight the highest-rated non-Klitschko in the world, Ruslan Chagaev, earlier this year. He demolished both of them.

Conventional wisdom is pretty straight across the board. Wladimir is the better athlete, Vitali the tougher man with the better chin. But there doesn't really appear to be anyone in boxing right now that can provide either brother with a genuine challenge. Keep that in mind as we count down the rest of a lackluster top ten.

American Eddie Chambers has had an excellent year, beating Samuel Peter and Alexander Dimitrenko. His lone loss came in January 2008 against Alexander Povetkin, a fight I've watched several times now and still feel Eddie should have won. He took his foot off the gas, lost his focus -- whatever it was, it wasn't that he wasn't a better boxer than Povetkin, who is a pretty fair boxer himself. He all but gave that fight away. He picked up the pieces and is now in line to fight Wladimir, likely in March 2010.

Ruslan Chagaev looked terrible against Wladimir in June and hasn't looked too great in a few years now, really, but it's a weak division and his record gets to speak louder than it might with stiffer competition around him.

Many felt that Chris Arreola represented a "hope" for the division. The laid-back Mexican-American brawler was outclassed badly by Klitschko. I said it the other day, I'll say it again: Going as easy as he has on condition hasn't been a problem when it came to guys like Travis Walker and Jameel McCline. McCline barely seemed interested in fighting, and Arreola does have the amateur pedigree plus the punching power to eventually outgun a guy like Walker, which is what he did. But the guy that beat Walker and McCline isn't going to beat one of the Klitschkos. He has to be better than that. If he can do the work, he's got a lot of the right attributes. He's got a ton of heart, legit power, and apparently a much better chin than many believed heading into the Vitali fight. We'll see where he goes, but I think he actually won a lot of fans the other night.

Former cruiserweight champion David Haye will get his first real chance to make noise when he takes on eighth-ranked titleholder Nikolai Valuev on November 7. The way some people felt about Klitschko-Arreola -- i.e. "God I hope he can rid us of Vitali's boring dominance" -- is how I feel about Valuev-Haye, except take out the "dominance" part. It's nothing personal or anything like that, but Valuev will never be in a good fight. Haye potentially could be in a lot of them.

Alexander Povetkin is still waiting on the shot against Wladimir that he won with that Jan. 2008 triumph over Chambers. To be perfectly honest, it doesn't seem like he's in any great rush, and even with that Olympic gold pedigree of his, I don't think he has a hope in hell. Too small (6'2", 225-230), not strong enough, not fast enough to make up for the lack of big power. At 30, he seems somewhat content. He's made no real stink about making the Wlad fight happen, and since beating Chambers has run over trial horse Taurus Sykes and kinda-prospect Jason Estrada.

Wladimir did have his own Arreola during his run of one-sided title fights, a guy that made him work harder than usual. That was Tony Thompson, an uncelebrated, now-37-year-old American that didn't so much trouble Wladimir as he did bother him. It was probably the toughest fight Wlad has had since the Samuel Peter near-fiasco back in 2005. And eventually, Tony was knocked out in 11. He's fought just once since then, and given his age and lack of really quality wins, this is a quite debatable ranking, I know.

Samuel Peter himself is starting to kick around again, following back-to-back losses to Vitali (an eight-round pummeling) and Chambers (who just outslicked the big Nigerian). Since dropping the fight to Chambers in April, he's signed with Top Rank, and they've started to rebuild his career. Knockout wins over journeymen Marcus McGee and Ronald Bellamy may set him up for something more meaningful soon. How about a potential slugfest with Arreola next? Sink or swim, y'know?

On the Outside: Does the division really have much else? Nah, nobody of appreciable difference, really, but there are some names that could just as easily be up here, starting with Alexander Dimitrenko (29-1, 19 KO), whose lone loss came to Chambers ... Juan Carlos Gomez hasn't made a peep since getting shellacked by Vitali ... American Kevin Johnson (22-0-1, 9 KO) was going to fight Odlanier Solis (14-0, 10 KO) on the October 10 Top Rank card, but surprise, surprise! Johnson pulled out and that interesting fight is off. Instead, Solis faces unlucky vet Fres Oquendo (31-5, 20 KO) ... I think Martin Rogan seems like a wonderful guy and agree his loss to Sam Sexton was bunk, but he's not world class material. Rogan and Sexton rematch on November 6 ... Tyson Fury (9-0, 7 KO) may or may not have a future on the world stage himself. Too early to tell. Remember, for all the hype and talk he's generated, he is still just 21 years old ... Did you know Tye Fields actually didn't decide that boxing isn't for him after getting starched in 57 seconds by a shot Monte Barrett? ... Oleg Maskaev really might be Vitali's next opponent. You know what, ESPN Classic? Don't even bother ... For those that barely follow anymore and are wondering, these men still fight professionally: Evander Holyfield, Hasim Rahman, David Tua, James Toney, Lamon Brewster, Francois Botha, Andrew Golota, and Oliver McCall.

One Other Guy: If I had to pick a single guy in boxing right now that could potentially someday pick off one of the Klitschkos, it would be 23-year old American Deontay Wilder. Let me make this 100% clear: If you put Wilder in a ring with one of the Klitschkos right now, he'd be lucky to last three rounds. That's no knock on him, it's just the level of experience. He's seven fights into his pro career, has a lot to learn, and has a fair amount of bulk yet to pack on to his 6'7" frame.

But the frame is the thing: Wilder, at 6'7" with an 84" reach, is as big as the Klitschkos, even a little longer than both of them. Of all the American fighters that we've seen coming up in recent years, guys like Chambers, Arreola, Kevin Johnson, et al, none of them have Wilder's frame. The guy looks like a freak athlete, and is a better natural, all-around athlete than either Klitschko. I already mentioned bulk, and yes he needs to put some on. Given his length and height, it would seem 240 or so could be a destructive weight for Wilder in due time. Right now, he's fighting at 220, a little under, and you have to remember he came in to pro boxing and weighed all of 207 3/4 pounds for his pro debut. They're taking it slow and doing it right.

Now, maybe Deontay Wilder never turns out to be anyone special as a pro fighter, maybe he just doesn't make it. Better prospects than Wilder have flamed out, and worse prospects have become outstanding professionals. But this is the type of guy that could potentially shake up the heavyweight landscape.

Another problem, though: By the time Deontay himself is ready, both Klitschkos might be retired. Vitali's 38, Wladimir's 33, and both of them take their post-boxing lives very seriously, vocally saying they'll never go too far and become "punch-drunk" fighters. Deontay's at least three years away from that type of fight, at which point Vitali will almost surely be retired for good and Wladimir would be 36, and we're talking the soonest possible date.

But even if they never get knocked off, Wilder might well inherit the throne someday.

Juan Manuel Marquez took the lightweight world championship last year from Joel Casamayor. A year later, and even after a loss at welterweight to Floyd Mayweather Jr., he keeps the top spot in Bad Left Hook's lightweight rankings.

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Bad Left Hook Lightweight Rankings

The 135-pound division remains one of the sport's best. Floyd Mayweather's return finally beefs up welterweight to somewhere near its public reputation, but lightweight has more potentially explosive matchups, and it all starts with the man at the top. Juan Manuel Marquez won the RING championship from Joel Casamayor about a year ago. Little did we know then he'd go on to fight Mayweather in 12 months.

The loss to Mayweather doesn't affect his standing here. The stoppage wins over Casamayor and fourth-ranked Juan Diaz are still highly impressive, and someone will have to knock him off his perch at 135 to take that spot from him. Though Marquez appears to prefer a potential 140-pound fight with Ricky Hatton, it seems more likely he'll be facing No. 6 Michael Katsidis, who was very impressive beating Vicente Escobedo on the Mayweather-Marquez undercard.

Second-ranked knockout machine Edwin Valero might need to return to the rings of Venezuela and Japan to fight again. Top Rank's investment in Valero has been a waste thus far, as he's fought just once, knocking out Antonio Pitalua in April. Legal and visa issues, along with his medical history, are keeping him out of the ring, but his stubbornness over opponents and paydays is no help, either.

No. 3 Joan Guzman will face No. 5 Ali Funeka on November 28, with Golden Boy promoting. Oscar and Co. signed Guzman, whose career has been really rocky and in many ways a waste of his outstanding talent. Sometimes it's easy to forget he's 33. The tall, rangy Funeka will test a should-be-rusty Guzman, who hasn't fought since last December. His last outing before that was November 2007, and before that, December 2006.

Seventh-ranked Rolando Reyes hasn't fought since April, when he stunned Julio Diaz with a fourth-round TKO. He's won five in a row since a 2006 loss to Jose Luis Castillo. Miguel Acosta, No. 8, burst into the top ten with his own stunning upset, a ninth round knockout of Urbano Antillon in July. He looks likely to face 130-pound titlist Humberto Soto on the Cotto-Pacquiao undercard.

Namibian Paulus Moses stepped up in competition this year, beating Yusuke Kobori in Japan on January 3, then Takehiro Shimada in Namibia on July 25. American prospect-slash-contender Anthony Peterson checks in at No. 10. He's the brother that goes "FWAH!"

On the Outside: David Diaz and Jesus Chavez will go to war this Saturday in Chicago. It's last chance for romance for both guys, probably ... Antonio DeMarco has had a really good year, and looks to close it out on a high note with a Halloween night fight against Jose Alfaro ... John Murray is the top Brit contender ... Marco Antonio Barrera is as shot as shot can be, and has very little to offer at this weight ... Vicente Escobedo fought hard against Katsidis, and on a different night with a few breaks, that fight may have turned out differently ... Joel Casamayor is not ranked, as he's been inactive for over a year now ... Miguel Vazquez took the "0" from Breidis Prescott on ESPN2 in July ... After missing Lightweight Lighting, world-ranked trash talker Jorge Barrios returned in August, and looks to get back in the ring again in November ... Chances are Urbano Antillon will bounce back and spend a lot of time on top ten rankings lists in his career

Guess who's back in the pound-for-pound rankings? Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s return win on Saturday has crashed the Pacquiao party at the top of Bad Left Hook's rankings. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

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We always knew he'd be coming back. Manny Pacquiao may be the hottest property in boxing, but Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s return to the ring has opened up a ton of debate. Who's really No. 1? Well...

1. Manny Pacquiao (Junior Welterweight) and Floyd Mayweather Jr. (Welterweight) -- Tie

I don't even like scoring 10-10 rounds, but the truth here, I think, is that there is ONE FIGHT out there that will truly decide the pound-for-pound crown, and it's Mayweather-Pacquiao right now. That might not even be true in two months. If Miguel Cotto upsets Pacquiao, then the pound-for-pound ruler is Mayweather, no questions about it.

A Mayweather-Pacquiao fight would be the perfect storm. Guys like Ricky Hatton and many others have talked about "winning" the pound-for-pound "title" in past fights, but it doesn't really work that way. Should Pacquiao beat Cotto, we would potentially have a fight that is literally to crown the world's top boxer. It's very rare that you get a chance like this, and should that fight come about, I hope boxing fans cherish the opportunity to see a fight of that magnitude and importance take place.

Of course, I still don't think the fight will, for any number of reasons. But I still like to hope.

3. Juan Manuel Marquez (Lightweight)

Until someone more his size can take him down besides (arguably) Manny Pacquiao, Marquez isn't dipping lower than this for me. He didn't look shot, he looked outclassed and out of his range weight-wise. It happens. Lots of great fighters have taken that risk, and while some make special things happen, many just don't, because the weight is too big an obstacle. That's what happened to Marquez. I think he's very vulnerable even at 135, but he's taken out Joel Casamayor and Juan Diaz at that weight, neither an easy task.

4. Paul Williams (Middleweight)

We'll see exactly what Williams can do against a young, strong, big-punching opponent on December 5. Williams' fight with Kelly Pavlik will be a decider in some ways. Either I'm really overrating Williams on the strength of how horribly he embarrassed an aged Winky Wright, plus his disposals of Verno Phillips and Carlos Quintana and a near-forgotten gutsy win over Antonio Margarito, or he becomes cemented up here with the top guys in the world.

5. Bernard Hopkins (Light Heavyweight)

Calling B-Hop a light heavy is kind of a fib, as he has looked more comfortable cutting down to 170 and beating Kelly Pavlik and Winky Wright in two of his last three, and a full 175-pound fight with Joe Calzaghe didn't go near so well. Guys that can make Bernard work really hard and use their speed can still give him fits, which is why I think even the shot Roy Jones Jr. would be a dangerous opponent for Hopkins. And I'm not sure he has the frame to work well at cruiserweight, as has been discussed for a bout with Tomasz Adamek. But Hop has earned his spot up here, and he won't lose it until he loses or retires, and I'm not sure which is more likely to happen first.

6. Shane Mosley (Welterweight)

It's very close between Shane and Cotto. Thing is, if they rematched right now, I'd lean toward Mosley just a little bit. I had him losing a clear, tight decision to Cotto when they fought back in 2007. Last time we saw Shane, he beat the hell out of Margarito, and you can asterisk plenty about Margarito, but one thing is not his chin. He's taken some absurd shots in his career, and no plaster helped him in that regard. Mosley beat him mercilessly until he caved.

7. Miguel Cotto (Welterweight)

A win over Manny Pacquiao would leapfrog Cotto higher than he's ever been, maybe even a shot all the way up to No. 2 depending on how it came about. Cotto isn't in a make-or-break situation or even close to it, but he's never had a bigger fight than this one, and if he loses, he might not get the chance to ever have one this big again.

8. Hozumi Hasegawa (Bantamweight)

Hasegawa jumps from No. 10 for me thanks to a couple of guys dropping after lackluster performances, and the fact that he's just plain been a bulldozer at 118 pounds the last couple of years. He's been ripping guys apart. He may be the most underrated and overlooked fighter out there.

9. Juan Manuel Lopez (Junior Featherweight)

Like Williams, you might think I simply have Lopez too high, but he's got such enormous talent that I can't help but be mesmerized by what he could do. Facts are facts, though, and Lopez needs to face the music against Celestino Caballero. The fight has been discussed for January. If he skips up to featherweight, it'll always be a bit of a question mark on his ledger.

10. Chris John (Featherweight)

John (43-0-2, 22 KO) got the W he probably deserved in February when he again survived a late charge from Rocky Juarez on Saturday night. John was nearly out on his feet in the 12th round, rocked by a short left hook that buckled his knees. He held on for dear life and won a clear decision. John's two fights with Juarez have finally made it clear that yes, this guy is one of the best boxers in the game. His late-fight struggles with Juarez are nothing to be alarmed about, either. Even though he's never gotten over the hump, Juarez is a powerful, legit fighter at 126 pounds.

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Nonito Donaire's invasion of the 115-pound division sees him leap right into the top spot in Bad Left Hook's rankings. (Photo via www.notifight.com)

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Bad Left Hook Junior Bantamweight Rankings

The 115-pound division is neither shallow nor terribly deep, its real problem being how few of these fighters are likely to fight one another, as they're all spread about into regional circuits that keep most of them separate. You have the guys that fight in Japan (Nashiro, Munoz, Kono), the guys that fight in America but aren't going to come near each other again (Donaire, Darchinyan), Filipinos becoming hot tickets in Canada (Sonsona), Filipinos that have never quite caught on (Gorres), and then guys like Cazares, Nongqayi and Lopez that'll really fight anywhere they can.

Some have fought already, some will fight, and yet not a lot of movement is bound to happen until and unless my top two, Nonito Donaire and Vic Darchinyan, serve up a rematch that frankly I think both of them need at this point.

Let's be honest: Donaire and Darchinyan have limited options. Donaire's career didn't take off near the way it should have after he shelled Darchinyan in 2007, handing the Armenian loudmouth his first career loss in emphatic fashion, and Darchinyan right now is comebacking, starting on December 12 with a fight against a will-be-overmatched Tomas Rojas, a tough vet that poses no real threat to Vic. Donaire just beat an out of shape Rafael Concepcion, a guy who can hang in there, sure, but also has a name built almost entirely on an upset victory over AJ Banal.

Donaire goes into my top spot simply because he holds a win over Darchinyan and I don't think a rematch would wind up looking terribly different. Darchinyan's dominant run over Dmitry Kirilov, Cristian Mijares and Jorge Arce was really impressive, but neither Kirilov nor Mijares can punch, and Arce is beyond damaged goods. Donaire is faster than Vic, has real power, and just had his number from the opening bell when they fought. Vic has to beat Nonito, or Nonito has to seriously slip, for me to consider Darchinyan the better fighter.

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Roy Jones Jr. climbs back into the Bad Left Hook top 10 at 175 pounds following an impressive beating of Jeff Lacy in August. (AP Photo)

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Bad Left Hook Light Heavyweight Rankings

Light heavyweight is one of boxing's "real" divisions, one of the originals with the long, long history and great stars of yesterday. In the last few years the division has skewed really old, led by Bernard Hopkins, Antonio Tarver, Glen Johnson and Roy Jones Jr.

But it's getting younger.

Bernard Hopkins stays at No. 1 for me, because he's earned it. Bernard's really only fought twice at the 175-pound limit, against Antonio Tarver and Joe Calzaghe, and he's just 1-1 in those fights. But his two 170-pound catchweight wins over Winky Wright and Kelly Pavlik were both quite impressive, and technically were light heavyweight fights. I think Bernard has some bad style matchups potentially, but you can also never count out a guy like B-Hop, as we've learned countless times. He's rugged, he's tougher than hell, and he's exceptionally intelligent in the ring. I think a superior athlete (Dawson, Pascal even, and maybe still Ol' Roy) might be able to show Hopkins for the 44-year old man he is, but note that I said "might."

It was Chad Dawson that started the youth movement when he dominated Tomasz Adamek and chased him out of the division in 2007. Last year and this year, he's fought some of the older guys and managed to not fight either Tavoris Cloud or Adrian Diaconu. Dawson's two wins over Antonio Tarver showed us an aged, way-too-slow Tarver whose left hand couldn't find Dawson with a map.

The guy that did test him -- and in some fans' minds, deserve to beat him -- was Glen Johnson, and they'll hook up again in November on HBO. Dawson-Johnson II is a pretty intriguing fight, and way more deserving of a rematch than Dawson-Tarver, a matchup that on two occasions failed to draw a fly to a pile of dung. If Dawson can win convincingly, he's really, really got an argument that he should be regarded as the No. 1 here, not Hopkins. But what if Glen wins? It's hardly unthinkable.

I flipped the spots of Jean Pascal and Zsolt Erdei from my June LHW rankings. Pascal's last two fights have been excellent and against good, tough fighters. Erdei has skills, but is perfectly content to take weak challenge after weak challenge. It's really hard for me to figure what Erdei could do against some of the top guys of his time, because him fighting any of them is about as likely as him fighting Mike Tyson.

Tavoris Cloud bursts into the top ten coming off of a dominant win over veteran Clinton Woods. That Cloud couldn't knock Woods out or even down is no shame; Clinton has taken some nasty shots in his career, and the only time he didn't make the distance in a loss came against the prime Roy Jones Jr., who beat him so horribly it looked like Roy wanted to stop punching, and Woods' corner threw in the towel. Cloud's still rough around the edges, but he fights with ferocity and at times showed a great ability to attack, especially to the body. He did get caught up headhunting in the middle rounds, and his height might someday be an issue for him, but he's on the rise.

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