Boxing’s pound-for-pound rankings: Who’s No. 1 as the big summer fights approach?

Every now and again, I get the itch to do something I’ve seen various MMA sites do over the years, tracking all the independent media rankings for boxing and coming up with a compilation of those rankings to try to determine what the consensus is for a top 10 or whatever in a division.

There are a couple of problems that I forget every time. First off, there just aren’t that many places doing consistent independent rankings. And second, and just as important, not everyone has the same standards for rankings — when inactivity kicks someone out, etc. I mean, for God’s sake, The RING is still recognizing Tyson Fury, who hasn’t fought since November 2015 and has twice “retired” from boxing since then, as the world heavyweight champion.

But I was fiddling around with the idea again before I ran back into the roadblocks that cut off the experiment before it ever moves — I looked only at heavyweight and ran into both issues immediately, then remembered — and I started thinking about, at the very least, the pound-for-pound top 10.

Let’s take a look at where four sets of rankings see the P4P list right now.

Let’s start with The RING, the ol’ Bible of Boxing, elderly and trusted, at least to some degree. Here’s what they have:

1. Andre Ward
2. Gennady Golovkin
3. Roman Gonzalez
4. Terence Crawford
5. Vasyl Lomachenko
6. Guillermo Rigondeaux
7. Sergey Kovalev
8. Canelo Alvarez
9. Mikey Garcia
10. Shinsuke Yamanaka

The TBRB is still going strong providing their own rankings, which I often reference and utilize in my down time, believing they have the best system. But that’s a personal preference. Here’s where they are right now:

1. Andre Ward
2. Roman Gonzalez
3. Terence Crawford
4. Vasyl Lomachenko
5. Gennady Golovkin
6. Canelo Alvarez
7. Naoya Inoue
8. Leo Santa Cruz
9. Mikey Garcia
10. Shinsuke Yamanaka

Dan Rafael’s ESPN rankings:

1. Andre Ward
2. Gennady Golovkin
3. Vasyl Lomachenko
4. Roman Gonzalez
5. Canelo Alvarez
6. Terence Crawford
7. Keith Thurman
8. Sergey Kovalev
9. Manny Pacquiao
10. Guillermo Rigondeaux

And, for kicks, here are the BoxRec rankings, which in their own way are always going to be the most controversial, even if most people know well enough to take their system with a grain of salt, as it’s not perfect, but something different:

1. Canelo Alvarez
2. Andre Ward
3. Terence Crawford
4. Vasyl Lomachenko
5. Gennady Golovkin
6. Anthony Joshua
7. Shinsuke Yamanaka
8. Jeff Horn
9. Miguel Berchelt
10. Keith Thurman

Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images

Big notes:

• The notable ESPN ranking, for me, is Pacquiao remaining at No. 9. Dan obviously believes more in the 38-year-old Pacquiao than most of us do at this stage. Even if you think he deserved to win against Jeff Horn, I don’t think he looked close to being a top 10 pound-for-pound fighter anymore. Sometimes it’s hard to let go, though.
• The big one at BoxRec — well, besides Alvarez being No. 1, which nobody else on earth believes besides maybe Oscar De La Hoya in one of his late night interviews — is Jeff Horn. The BoxRec system doesn’t allow for much designation of a “robbery.” Pacquiao was highly ranked before losing to Horn, Horn beat him, Horn shot way up in the rankings. According to BoxRec, he is the world’s best welterweight. And for whatever it’s worth, BoxRec have Pacquiao still No. 12 in their pound-for-pound rankings. This is all a way for me to say that there are a lot of really, really good fighters out there in the world, and I don’t think at this point I’d have Pacquiao (or Horn) in the top 20 pound-for-pound. Not based on what I saw in that fight.
• Leo Santa Cruz is ranked only by TBRB. I think it’s a fair shout, actually. I don’t have him in my top 10, either, but I think it’s fair.
• Mikey Garcia, who garnered a lot of P4P talk attention a couple weeks back, is ranked No. 9 by both RING and TBRB, not in the top 10 at ESPN and BoxRec. I think his P4P value is perhaps being juuuust a little overlooked right now, but at the same time I can understand people not putting too much weight on wins over Dejan Zlaticanin and Adrien Broner. He was supposed to win both fights. He did.
• Guillermo Rigondeaux is ranked sixth by The RING and 10th by ESPN. The other two leave him out. He is going to go down as having had such a “what-if” career unless things drastically change. Maybe if/when he shows some actual vulnerability, people will rush to try to take advantage.
• Vasyl Lomachenko comes in consistently: 5, 4, 3, 4. TV talks about him in the discussion for No. 1, and I personally think he deserves the consideration, but the rankings are fair, too. He’s not done what Andre Ward (1, 1, 1, 2) has in his career, or even recently.
• I’m on board with RING and ESPN ranking Kovalev (7, 8) in the top 10 still. He only lost to Andre Ward, probably the best in the world, and one of them was razor thin. We’ll see if the second loss affects him longer term when he returns this fall. My gut feeling is it’s not going to, and he’s going to go back to looking like Sergey Kovalev for a couple more years. It’ll be a reminder of how good Ward really is.
• As mentioned, BoxRec can’t really give weight to “robberies” with how the rankings are designed, and their system also grossly undervalues “the little guys,” anyway. But you can see how little Chocolatito Gonzalez’s loss to Srisaket Sor Rungvisai has meant to the others, as he comes in at 3, 2, and 4 still, after topping lists for a short while.
• Gennady Golovkin has two 2s (RING, ESPN) and two 5s (TBRB, BoxRec). There’s a lot of chatter that he’s past his prime. He’s 35 years old. Coming off a tough fight. But I think maybe Daniel Jacobs was the toughest matchup for him at 160, too. The result of that fight and the talk that maybe Golovkin is coming down the other side of the hill has added another layer of intrigue to the September 16 fight with Canelo, at least.

For the hell of it, here’s where I’m at right now, just on my own feelings:

1. Andre Ward
2. Vasyl Lomachenko
3. Terence Crawford
4. Roman Gonzalez
5. Gennady Golovkin
6. Guillermo Rigondeaux
7. Mikey Garcia
8. Sergey Kovalev
9. Naoya Inoue
10. Canelo Alvarez

And if you really want to do a consensus P4P top 10 with these four outlets, well, go ahead. By a simple scoring system (10 points for No. 1, 1 point for No. 10, etc.) you wind up with Andre Ward comfortable at No. 1, and Gennady Golovkin at No. 2. Vasyl Lomachenko and Terence Crawford tie at No. 3, Canelo Alvarez and Roman Gonzalez tie at No. 5, and the rest are also-rans, a vote here, a vote there.

But all of this is a way to say: hey, what’s YOUR top 10 right now?