With several major cards to reflect on, this one was a busy week for the S8C Top 25 rankings. Most of the action concentrated around the two Showtime broadcast cards highlighting junior welterweight, but there was also top ten movement at junior middleweight, lightweight, featherweight, and more.
Let’s start with the fallout at the 140 pound limit. Pound for pound elite Mikey Garcia is the de facto number one in the division, but he remains #2 in my rankings until Terence Crawford officially moves up to welterweight against Jeff Horn. As long as Crawford looks fine at the weight, I will remove him as he seems to have no intentions on returning the division he recently ruled. Sergey Lipinets fell a spot to #12 after losing to Garcia, but that was more because of other movement than punishing him for his performance. He fought as well as could have been expected.
Kiryl Relikh was a big winner, moving to #5 from sixteenth following his WBA title win over previously fourth ranked Rances Barthelemy. The Cuban fell to #8 after suffering his first professional defeat. Regis Prograis jumped from twelfth up to #6 thanks to his smashing of recent unified titleholder Julius Indongo. Now on a two fight losing streak, the Namibian is on a bit of a free fall down to #16 in the rankings. Ivan Baranchyk joined at #21 following his win as well.
I also left Mikey Garcia as the #2 lightweight as well as he indicated post-fight that he would like to return there. Petr Petrov is another weight question that I left at lightweight, but I didn’t bother to double rank him as he looked bad at 140 against Baranchyk and will likely return to 135. I dropped him a single spot to #10. That is in part thanks to new #9 Richard Commey’s big stoppage win over previously unbeaten Alejandro Luna. I left Luna at #21 despite the rough loss, however, as the back third of lightweight is quite weak.
At featherweight, Oscar Valdez’s ultra-exciting win over an oversized Scott Quigg moved him up from seventh to #5. That brought him by not only his opponent, but Lee Selby as well. I just think Valdez wins that fight comfortably at this point. Quigg, passed by Valdez, fell from sixth to #7.
Also due to the fact that I think he’d win in a matchup of the two, I moved under the radar Argentinian top contender Brian Carlos Castaño ahead of Liam Smith at junior middleweight. They are now #6 and #7 respectively. Previously twenty third Cedric Vitu fell out of the rankings following his one sided loss to Castaño too. While he didn’t really under perform expectations, the back few slots at 154 are highly competitive and the loss was enough. Terrell Gausha enters once again at #25. #15 Jack Culcay was in action at the weight as well and holds his previous position with a minor win.
Super bantamweight saw some movement thanks to Golden Boy on ESPN’s upset in their main event. Previous number ten Ronny Rios fell to unranked Azat Hovhannisyan. They have met in the middle and are now #17 and #16 respectively. #23 and #25 Emanuel Navarrete and Thomas Patrick Ward both picked up wins as well and would have held their rankings, but Hovhannisyan’s surge pushed them both back a spot.
I snuck rising Brazilian contender Esquiva Falcao in as the #22 middleweight basically on talent. He is due for a shot against Ryota Murata this summer to prove himself beyond that. Rob Brant held #21 at the same weight with his low level comeback win.
Finally, Andy Ruiz Jr returned from an extended layoff and held his #9 position at heavyweight.
