It has been a slow couple weeks for sure, but that doesn’t mean nothing happened. Let’s take a look back at Jose Pedraza’s win, Ryan Garcia’s card, and much more in order to update the S8C Top 25 rankings.
It hasn’t been a particularly busy two weeks in the boxing world, but we did have one borderline major card two weeks ago thanks to Top Rank and ESPN. In the main event, Jose Pedraza triumphed thanks to a big late knockdown over Ray Beltran to take the WBO lightweight belt. More important than the title even is the right to collect a career high payday and chase glory against top pound for pound fighter Vasyl Lomachenko come December. Pedraza did it fighting Beltran’s fight for long stretches though. As a southpaw at range, Jose was able to hit and not be hit with relative ease. He fought few rounds like that, however, though he won the ones he did pretty clearly. The majority of the timw was spent infighting at the Puerto Rican’s choice. That was an even fight more or less, but a big uppercut from a little distance in the eleventh earned a much needed 10-8 round to steal the belt. I actually hadn’t moved Jose to the lightweight S8C Top 25 yet, but this time I had to. I have him all the way at #6. This is where Beltran was previously, but he’s now fallen to #9. #2 super bantamweight Isaac Dogboe also held his ranking after his one round demolition of unranked Hidenori Otake on the undercard.
Otherwise, nothing big really had a chance to happen. Ryan Garcia struggled late unexpected against Carlos Morales on Golden Boy’s Facebook show, but I don’t have either man ranked anyway. The undercard of that show did flip some things on its head though, particularly at junior middleweight. Following their upset wins, Jeison Roario, Patrick Teixeira, and Neeco Macias all debuted #23-#25 respectively with a trio of surprising wins. Rosario beat fellow fringe prospect Jamontay Clark easily while Patrick Teixeira completely shocked me by dominating talented Jamaican Nathaniel Gallimore. Gallimore went from eighteenth to unranked as a result as well. Macias upset Mexican Olympian Marvin Cabrera behind a ridiculous punch count and slides in at #25..
Maybe the least expected story of the weekend was of the resurgence of former major light heavyweight prospect Thomas Oosthuizen. The tall and lanky fringe contender has largely forgone the potential he could have reached thanks to substance abuse issues, but he still found him in one big domestic fight against fellow South African and a top twenty cruiserweight in Thabiso Mchunu, Makabu holds 13. He threw in combination early and banked a big lead before having to hold onto a narrow margin down the stretch. Ooshuizen has gone from completely written off to an interesting cruiserweight contender.
#15 welterweight Jamal James took a small step back down and won by early stoppage this week. #5 light flyweight Pedro Guevara, #8 super bantamweight Cesar Juarez, and #16 super middleweight Caleb Truax earned lower level victories too without issue. I may have to move Guevara out of the division unless he returns to it for his next fight though. I also moved Wenfeng Ge from super flyweight where I had just outside the top 25 to flyweight which is a much less talented division. Accordingly, the Chinese fighter is #16 there. Finally, retired Nathan Cleverly stuck to his word and has been inactive for a year. I removed him from the light heavyweight rankings.
