Pound-for-pound ratings November 2007

The weekend's action saw two of the world's top pound-for-pound boxers in action. Joe Calzaghe unified the world super-middleweight title with his brilliant win over Mikkel Kessler, while, in Tucson, Arizona, Juan Manuel Marquez outclassed Rocky Juarez. Get two boxing fans together and they will draw up completely different pound-for-pound lists. Here's mine, feel free to comment.

1. Floyd Mayweather
No surprises there. You don't win five WBC titles for nothing. His win over Oscar De La Hoya in May put him out in the clear.

2. Joe Calzaghe
Let's stop kidding ourselves that Joe doesn't deserve to be up there. To record wins over Eubank and Kessler more than ten years apart shows his worth. What made the win over Kessler so impressive was the ability to change tactics when things were not going his way. Once again he came good on the big occasion.

3. Manny Pacquiao
The Filipino essentially ended the careers of two legends in Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales, is remarkably tough and very exciting. He was fairly lucky to get a draw with Juan Manuel Marquez however.

4. Chris John
The WBA featherweight champion has a big exclamation mark on his record with his 2006 win over Juan Manuel Marquez. That took place in Indonesia, so Marquez did what many Americans have done when getting back from Europe and said he got conned. But that holds little water. It was a unanimous decision and from what I've seen of the bout, Marquez looked slow plodding after John. Like Calzaghe, the Americans don't like him because he doesn't box in America but The Thin Man is a fantastic boxer.

5. Ricky Hatton
Jose Luis Castillo had seen better days, but so had Barrera and Marquez (see Pacquiao) and Hatton really did a number on him. Hs win over Kostya Tszyu also rates as one of the best ever by a British boxer.

6. Juan Manuel Marquez
Picked himself off the floor three times against Pacquiao but then completely outboxed the Filipino and was terribly unlucky only to draw. But recent wins over Barrera and Rocky Juarez have him marked out as a new Mexican legend.

7. Wladimir Klitschko
Talk of the death of the heavyweight division is greatly exaggerated - it's just dead in America. The younger Klitschko seems to have got over his earlier vulnerabilities and is a fearsome boxer. Manny Steward is turning him into something of a Lennox Lewis clone, but he would hold his own in most heavweight eras.

8. Israel Vazquez
At 29, a Mexican super-bantamweight should be getting over the hill, but wins in his last five fights over Rafael Marquez, Jhonny Gonzalez and Oscar Larios read very well.

9. Bernard Hopkins
An all-time great but five years past his best. Hopkins has made great progress on a senior citizens circuit of late but, let's face it, Antonio Tarver and Winky Wright looked washed up against Hopkins. I can't believe anyone would pick him to beat Calzaghe if they met.

10. Miguel Cotto
Two-weight world champion, exciting and would move up the list by beating Shane Mosley at the weekend.

Just missed out: Kelly Pavlik, Shane Mosley, Juan Diaz, Jean-Marc Mormeck, Celestino Caballero.

Comments

[g!vZ]

i think pacquiao desarve to be 1 P4P,coz his not boring to watch,he have the speed, stamina, power, and his hamble.not like "GAYWEATHER" that waiting for the bell, he's Really boring to watch.he always talk and talk!!!like A chiken!!

[Lee]

Sooo glad not to see Anthony Mundine in the list. I sure hope he reads this. He thinks he's better than anyone who's ever lived and that no one can beat him. I might be Australian, but I'll take the 'unpatriotic' route and back a non aussie against this big mouth racist any day!
He says he next wants to take on Calzaghe and reckons he'll beat him. He's kidding. Not a chance Mundine. 'cmon Joe....please, please take 'mundane' on so we don't have to listen to his non stop big noting and bragging. I can assure you, even in Oz, most of the crowd will be supporting you.

[Phil D]

Ridiculous to put Ricky Hatton above a guy like Hopkins...a living legend....a warrior. Its a travesty. Hopkins was old and whipping the backsides of younger foes in their prime. Hatton is young and fights old legends who are past it to build a dubious reputation; and even with that he punches and then holds. The only respectable bout he has fought for him was against Kostya Tszyu and even then he was hanging on for dear life

[Scrapiron]

Let's give the Yanks a taste of their own medicine here - Mayweather doesn't deserve to be number one because he's never fought outside the US. He's the trans-Atlantic Sven Ottke. Calzaghe, on the other hand, has fought in England, Scotland, Denmark and Germany. Calzaghe should be number one.

[Rich]

I usually don't post comments on blogs but I have got to say something to 'Boxing faan"
You said: "Dis-appointments for include: Lennox Lewis refusing to fight riddick bowe when it was obviously a path that would cement him as a hall-of-famer"
As we know, Lewis won the Olympic gold after stopping bowe.
Go to -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riddick_Bowe
"With pressure mounting for Bowe to face WBC champ Lennox Lewis, Bowe and co. instead elected to face Holyfield in a rematch in November 1993..."
"Only a couple of weeks earlier in London, Bowe's old Olympic rival Lennox Lewis surprisingly knocked out the feared Jamaican Donovan "Razor" Ruddock in 2 rounds, establishing himself as #1 contender. In a move that would hurt Bowe's image, he held a press conference and dumped the WBC belt in a bin rather than fight Lewis."
So it's nearly right

[Boxing faan]

The trouble with British boxers (or is it their managers) is that they over-protect the players and carefully work towards building up records with (mostly) poor south american opposition. They do this even with guys that are obviously talented -- like calzaghe, lennox lewis, ricky hatton, naseem hamed, eubanks.

After a while, serious fight fans start to rate these guys lower than they should be rated. And no, its not about a perception that one has to fight in America to be considered the best .. the more accurate thing is that at any given time, the some of the best fighters are fighting from America, but you can still fight them in England if you wanted to.

Dis-appointments for include:
-- Lennox Lewis refusing to fight riddick bowe when it was obviously a path that would cement him as a hall-of-famer
-- calzaghe wallowing with nonentity belt for so long, and in his 30s now wants to fight a 42-year old man.
-- ricky hatton still taking safe bets, instead of going in with bombers are proving to us that his pressure is genuine.
-- Naz messing around with lower class fighters for so long, and getting unduely complacent with it. His only two world class fights he paid for his complacency and was very very lucky to beat kevin kelley.

UK boxers/managers should shed their inferiority complex, because we do have some great talent. They should emulate Nigel Benn for wishing to be reckoned as the best, by taking on the very best around.

In conclusion, I would not have Calzaghe or Hatton on that list, and if I must, it would be in the last two slots (9th and 10th, in whatever order).

[David C]

Calzaghe probably one spot too high at 2 - ought to be behind PacMan, who is 4-1 against Morales and Barrera, two first ballot HOFers. It's whether you put stock in the career record, or the quality of opposition. Joe is certainly top 5 PFP baddest fighters on the planet, an awesome achievement at 35.
Hatton is definitely top ten PFP also. People citing his oppositions record as unimpressive are missing the point. In a month he's taking on the undisputed PFP king, in a division he's uncomfortable with. Going out of your comfort zone, to fight the number one fighter on the planet in his backyard doesn't sound like a man who's padding his record or dodging fights. (The same goes for Joe C, who got called out for years for dodging fights, yet fights Kessler at age 35 - Ottke he ain't!)

[Keith Warhurst]

Calzaghe at 2?

Tripe.

He burgled a holiday let when he beat Eubank and since then he has beaten two overrated robots in Lacy and Kessler, who don't have a top class fighter between them, a few Brit type fighters and a whole load of bums.

For a decade he sat on a dump belt in a dump division. Outside of that he has talked about meaningful fights at light heavy because super middle was so poor and done nothing.

Jones, D-Man, Hopkins, Johnson and others have all passed him by while he was on the other side of the road shooting his mouth off.

The shame of it is that he could have shown himself to have been very special and he could have taken part in some of the super fights of this decade.

Unfortunately you can't ride to Canastota on the back of could have.

[Edwin Ramirez]

You're the only one I've known who put Calzaghe above Pacquiao. This is unlikely to happen.

[Ron Lewis]

I don't mark Calzaghe up for being British, but I don't see why people who box in the US should automatically be seen as superior. Pacquiao has boxed a higher class of opposition, but he hasn't beaten them all like Calzaghe has. He was lucky to get a draw with Marquez, he was the last man beaten by Morales.While there's no disgrace in that, there is no disgrace to being behind Calzaghe either.
Hatton got lucky against Collazo, but did a cracking job on Castillo and won just about every round against Urango. I don't think he's too high.

[Boxing faan]

I really do not think Hatton belongs up there. Look through the list of opponents of the others on that list, and you will see that these are guys that have consistently fought the best opponents around. Now, turn around and compare that with Hatton:
1. Beat Tszyu (his best world class fight) when Tszyu was on the way down, but I will give Hatton that as a positive.
2. Lost to Collazo (in my opinion), but got the ref's nod (probably in building up to supposed exciting future fights in the US).
3. fought thru a snooze-fest with Juan Urango (who cannot really be up classed amongst the elite of his division) and realised that Ricky Hatton is a product of hype.
4. His last fight with Castillo was just a farce. Castillo was living on past glory, had turned up for his previous fight over the weight limit. I think the only reason he turned up at all was to ensure he did not breach the contract again, and there was even talk that his purse was going to be confiscated. So, here was an un-motivated man, clearly ill-prepared, and he came to run and hide for as long as he could. With an untrained body, an innocuous body punch suprising put paid to his challenge.

So, I know we British like to big up Hatton, and I am not saying he is not good, but he is certainly nowhere near as we like to make out. I am a boxing purist, and would not let nationalism get in the way of my judgement of a fighter. Hatton needs to first prove he is worth the rating he is being given.

[Gareth Quinn]

I don't see how you can possibly have Calzaghe above Pacquiao given the class of the opposition that both have faced. Are you maybe placing him a little higher owing to his being British?