Both the super and traditional flyweight divisions saw some movement this week thanks to HBO’s wildly entertaining second edition of their Superfly series. Big winners include McWilliams Arroyo, Artem Dalakian, and a new number one at flyweight. A few other ranked fighters were in action as well.
With his big win over Juan Francisco Estrada, Srisaket Sor Rungvisai of course held on to his #1 ranking at super flyweight. Estrada fought him tooth and nail in a highly competitive loss, so I didn’t punish him and left him at #3. McWilliams Arroyo had not been active enough to be ranked at all before Saturday night, but he left it a big winner debuting all the way up at #8 in a very deep division. Carlos Cuadras tumbled a bit thanks to his second straight loss from fourth to #7.
Brian Viloria returned to flyweight and was removed from the super flyweight rankings. I just don’t see him going back there if he keeps fighting at all. If he stayed at super flyweight where he was thirteenth Viloria would have free fallen, but flyweight has very little depth. There he is still a top ten fight at #8. His conqueror, Ukrainian new titleholder Artem Dalakian, leaped all the way up from twenty third to #6.
Of course, Dalakian versus Viloria was far from the biggest fight in the weight class over the weekend. That honor goes to previous number two and three Donnie Nietes and Juan Carlos Reveco meeting to open HBO’s broadcast. With the stoppage win, I actually jumped Nietes up to #1 over Japanese star Kazuto Ioka as Ioka didn’t dominate Reveco like that in two tries. This is largely a symbolic move as Ioka says he is retired and will accordingly time out of the rankings after he has not fought for a year anyway, but Nietes deserves to be #1 even if Ioka remains active. Reveco fell to #6.
Finally, #24 light heavyweight Anthony Yarde, #4 super middleweight Callum Smith, and #8 featherweight all picked up routine wins over unranked opponents. None of their rankings changed.
