After a three week hiatus for the super busy holiday season, the S8C Top 25 is back. We have a lot to go over. Everything from Jeff Horn’s title defense on Monday the 13th through this past weekend’s action in Japan is up for evaluation, including but not limited to the return of Jessie Vargas and Billy Joe Saunders’s domination of David Lemieux.
Instead of my usual narrative style update, I am going to do this division by division in more of an informational style. Three weeks is a lot to cover.
Heavyweight – Alexander Povetkin holds #4 after beating Christiam Hammer who falls from fourteenth to #19 based on his listless performance
Cruiserweight – Maksim Vlasov moved from thirteenth to #14 based on his last two wins, one of which I neglected to factor in now. He passes Mike Perez who has no resume at the weight.
Light Heavyweight – No changes.
Super Middleweight – No changes.
Middleweight – Billy Joe Saunders moves up from fifth to #4 following his domination of David Lemieux who falls from fourth to #7. Despite the performance, I still can’t move Saunders past Danny Jacobs. Antoine Douglas falls out completely from twenty second after being dominated by Spike O’Sullivan who moves in at #17.
Junior Middleweight – No Changes
Welterweight – Jessie Vargas returns in at #9 following his PBC on FS1 win. On the same card, Diego Chaves’s loss to Jamal James knocked him out completely from twenty fourth while James debuts at #25. Jeff Horn holds at #7 following his win over Gary Corcoran.
Junior Welterweight – Yves Ulysse Jr steals Cletus Seldin’s #25 slot by dominating him in Montreal, push Seldin completely out of the Top 25. John Molina Jr holds at #13 following his thrilling, come from behind stoppage of Ivan Redkach.
Lightweight – Dejan Zlaticanin and Yvan Mendy stay at #7 and #14 respectively following minor wins. Edis Tetli re-enters at #25 following winning his rematch Francesco Patera, knocking Patera out of the rankings.
Junior Lightweight – No changes.
Featherweight – No changes.
Super Bantamweight – Shingo Wake holds #21 following his minor win. TJ Doheny jumps from the last man in to #22 following his title eliminator win on the road in Thailand.
Bantamweight – Following wins, Nordine Oubaali moves up to spots to #20 while Takuma Inoue holds steady at #23.
Super Flyweight – Naoya Inoue remains at #2. I’ll move him to bantamweight when he fights there. Francisco Rodriguez Jr is in at #15 from flyweight in an overdue move up in my rankings.
Flyweight – Sho Kimura went from tenth to #6 following his impressive finish of previously eighth ranked Toshiyuki Igarashi. Igarashi falls to #10. As mentioned above, previously seventh ranked Francisco Rodriguez was removed and slotted in at super flyweight.
Light Flyweight – Ryoichi Taguchi made a huge jump from eighth to #2 behind Kosei Tanaka after defeating Milan Melindo to unify two belts. Melindo fell from second to #4 thanks to his loss and Ken Shiro’s title defense that brought him up a slot to #3.
