Murat Gassiev’s highly entertaining twelfth round finish of Yunier Dorticos to advance to meet Oleksandr Usyk in the tournament finals didn’t have a huge impact in the rankings, but it does set up an amazing number one versus number two complete unification contest. We also have fallout from the Top Rank title doubleheader, an Eddie Hearn prospect breaking into the rankings, and more.
Murat Gassiev holds on to his #2 spot after his great late stoppage of previous number three Yunier Dorticos. I couldn’t move him up past Oleksandr Usyk, but it is academic anyway. The two of them are going to meet in May in one the absolute best fights that can be made in all of boxing. As for Dorticos, I only dropped him one spot behind Mairis Briedis even though he was a little outclassed by the end. I still think he deserves to be the #4 cruiserweight.
Also in the division and on the same card was Maksim Vlasov’s beating of Olanrewaju Durodola. Vlasov is undefeated at the weight and on a really underrated run at this point. I moved him up from thirteenth to #10 following the solid win. Durodola falls from twentieth down two spots to #22.
Russian lightweight and now WBO mandatory challenger Roman Andreev picked up a win over British fighter Craig Evans on the same bill and enters the lightweight rankings at #23 as well. I also moved professional novice but amateur standout Mikhail Aloyan up from being the last man in at bantamweight to #20 after only his fourth pro fight. I can’t say the same positives for previously eleventh ranked super middleweight Fedor Chudinov, however. Despite his stoppage win over an entirely overmatched late replacement opponent, I don’t like what I see in there for him. His defensive liabilities that were exposed by George Groves seem as glaring as ever. I dropped him from eleventh to #13.
Part of the reason I did this was to move Jesse Hart up a spot from thirteenth to #12 following his first round stoppage win on the deep Top Rank undercard. It isn’t that that win means anything, but just that I realized I don’t think he’d have much of an issue beating Fedor Chudinov at this point.
As for the main two title fight outcomes on that card, neither #1 super middleweight Gilberto Ramirez nor #6 super flyweight Jerwin Ancajas saw any impact to their rankings. They both won showcase fights that were never going to go any other way. Australian super middleweight Rohan Murdock did enter the rankings at #25 thanks to his performance on the same show though. He is offensively talented enough to be ranked at least. Plus, the back end of the super middleweight top 25 is not that strong right now.
In the UK, junior middleweight prospect Ted Cheeseman had an excellent showing against grizzled veteran Carson Jones. Cheeseman had a much easier time in the end than many excellent fighters have had against the high level gatekeeper. Accordingly, I have brought him into the rankings at #23. Carson Jones has fallen out now.
#12 bantamweight Paul Butler took an inconsequential, easy fight on that show as well. His ranking is not affected. #9 bantamweight Omar Narvaez did the same at home in Argentina.
Dynamic flyweight titleholder Daigo Higa kept both his belt and perfect knockout percentage after stopping Moises Fuentes in one on Sunday. I didn’t change anything in the flyweight rankings, however, so he remains at #3. Both Kazuto Ioka and Donnie Nietes deserves to remain above him. I know Ioka says he is retired, but I don’t remove anyone until they have timed out after not fighting for a year. As for Fuentes, there is no reason to drop him despite the first round knockout loss. Flyweight is pretty bad outside of the top ten and basically anyone ranked below him would have had a similar result in all likelihood.
Finally, stalled out lightweight prospect Felix Verdejo should have lost his #14 ranking due to a year of inactivity as of Saturday. He has a fight scheduled for March, however, so I will not remove him unless that falls through.
