Pound for pound king Vasyl Lomachenko has switched divisions. What does his presence do to 135 lbs? Also, Jaime Munguia makes a huge leap and some extreme youth begins to crack the rankings in two different divisions.
I have yet to publish my pound for pound rankings, but I make them periodically anyway and I have had Vasyl Lomachenko number one ever since Andre Ward left the sport. This put me in a curious position now that Loma has moved to lightweight. I do think it would be counter intuitively fair to have him number one pound for pound and number two at lightweight behind Mikey Garcia due to believing he would lose to Mikey only because of size. I didn’t go that route, but I thought about it. Instead I just ranked him #1 at lighweight. Linares is the best win either of them have and I do think the Ukrainian in ring artist can handle Garcia should that matchup take place at 135 lbs. With the loss, I only dropped Linares to #3 behind the two aforementioned men. It is also entirely possible I will be removing Garcia from the lightweight rankings after his next fight at junior welterweight if I feel he is staying there permanently.
I also remove Lomachenko from the junior lightweight rankings. He isn’t going back down after that performance. This means everyone moves up a spot including Mexican star Miguel Berchelt who now assumes the #1 ranking. Also in action on the ESPN card was Dominican prospect Carlos Adames who holds his #24 welterweight ranking with the win.
HBO broadcast the rapid ascent of Mexican Jamie Munguia from prospect to the heights of champion in only one round. I actually rank divisions out past the top 25 so I can have an idea of who to move in when fighters leave the rankings for one reason or another. Munguia was actually twenty eighth at the weight. Now he rockets up to being #12 at junior middleweight. Another performance like that will see him comfortably in the top ten once he proves he can do it without the massive size advantage. Sadam Ali falls from eighth to #13. In the same division, Tony Harrison moves up a spot to #14 following his win over Ishe Smith on Bounce.
#3 super bantamweight Rey Vargas holds strong there following his fun but predictable win over the always game Azat Hovhannisyan. I can’t punish Azat for that performance either and he stays at #14. Also in action on ShoBox was rising prospect Joshua Greer Jr. I inserted him at #23 as his knockout streak continues. This pushed Rico Ramos out of the S8C Top 25 for now.
Speaking of newcomers, we have two extremely young ones in 19 year old sensations Devin Haney and Ryan Garcia slipping in at #25 at lightweight and junior lightweight respectively. Garcia slid in with the departure of Lomachenko from the division while the addition of Loma and Haney both to lightweight had the unfortunate side effect of pushing out both Paulus Moses and Roman Andreev at no fault of their own. Montreal junior welterweight prospect Yves Ulysse Jr also comes back to the junior welterweight rankings at #25 thanks to the surprising loss of previously nineteenth ranked Ismael Barroso overseas. He has fallen clean out of the S8C Top 25.
Turkish contender Avni Yildirim moved up a spot to #22 at super middleweight thanks to his win over the game and durable Ryan Ford in Germany. #9 heavyweight Hughie Fury, #7 cruiserweight Krzysztof Glowacki, #8 cruiserweight Andrew Tabiti, and #22 middleweight Artur Akavov also all picked up wins that didn’t really do anything to advance their rankings.
Finally, both #3 featherweight Gary Russell Jr and #18 junior lightweight Liam Walsh would have timed out of the rankings this week, but they were saved by having fights scheduled in the near future.
