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Kessler Back at 168
With his inactive spell over, Mikkel Kessler is back in the rankings at super middleweight. Kessler (44-2, 33 KO) is in at No. 4, behind Andre Ward, Lucian Bute and Carl Froch. I know Kessler has a pretty decent win over Froch, but it was an extremely close fight, and since then Froch has beaten two more top 10 guys, while Kessler's win over Mehdi Bouadla was easy as pie, which like George Carlin is a phrase I do not understand.
Froch maintains his hold on the No. 3 spot, but I have at many times considered bumping him to No. 2. He's simply beating better fighters than Lucian Bute is. What steadies my hand from dropping Bute is that Froch has also been put into a position where he has to fight those guys, and I honestly do feel Bute's as good as his reputation, and with what's in front of him, Bute does as expected. Plus, the Brian Magee win was solid and legit.
South Africa's Thomas Oosthuizen also won this weekend, but against a lesser opponent (William Gare), and as he was basically a placeholder at No. 10 anyway, he's the victim of Kessler's return.
Middleweights, Briefly
Julio Cesar Chavez Jr is making the headlines, but he's still not making my top ten at 160. Sebastian Zbik wasn't particularly close to being top ten in my view coming into that fight, and truthfully Chavez still might not be in my top 20.
Here are the ranked fighters in action this coming weekend, which is another slow weekend.
Super Flyweights: No. 2 Omar Narvaez (34-0-2, 19 KO) vs William Urbina (17-1, 14 KO)
Flyweights: Juan Carlos Reveco (No. 4 Junior Flyweight, 26-1, 15 KO) vs Jean Piero Perez (18-3-1, 13 KO)
There's also a very notable fight at 154 lbs between Austin Trout (22-0, 13 KO) and David Lopez (40-12, 23 KO), which if there is an impressive winner, could impact the rankings.