All hail King Arthur! Arthur Abraham remains atop our power rankings (which, as you probably know by now, is NOT a pound-for-pound list!) after his sudden and violent KO of Jermain Taylor in the first stage of the Super Six World Boxing Classic.
There's been some shuffling behind him, but with a busy schedule over the next five or six weeks, things could really look different by the end of the year. We will do a P4P list for the end of 2009 too, and though I expect Floyd Mayweather will easily take the top spot there, the second position could be affected by the upcoming Manny Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto fight.
But I'm getting ahead of myself a bit. Here are this month's power rankings...
1. Arthur Abraham - 26.13 - It's tough to do much better than Abraham has done from November 2006 to the present: nine fights, nine wins, with seven by way of knockout. He may have knocked Taylor clean out of the tournament, but he'll get a very different look from Andre Dirrell in a few months.
2. Wladimir Klitschko - 21.07 - Wlad has fared almost as well as the man above him, going 7-0 with 6 KOs over the past three years. One wonders if he'll eventually relent and fight big brother Vitali in what would be a very intriguing match-up.
3. Juan Manuel Lopez - 19.23 - Juanma got a bit more than he bargained for from Rogers Mtagwa and ended up holding on for dear life in the final round. Don't expect such high drama when he takes on Steven Luevano next, though it could still be a very entertaining fight.
4. Manny Pacquiao - 17.49 - After some doubts about how he'd fare against naturally bigger boxers in his last few fights, it almost seems as if some fans are giving Pac Man too much credit now and dismissing Miguel Cotto's chances of beating him. We'll find out in less than two weeks if that school of thought proves to be correct.
5. Kelly Pavlik - 16.97 - With a troublesome staph infection that won't go away, The Ghost's current period of inactivity continues to roll on. If he doesn't fight by the end of January - which seems likely now - he'll lose enough points to disappear from this list.
6. Nonito Donaire - 16.60 - The Filipino Flash is probably going to return to action in February of 2010. No definitive word on an opponent as of yet.
7. Felix Sturm - 15.75 - Sturm has to be a little jealous seeing the best European boxers one division north compete in the Super Six. Someone needs to organize a tournament for middleweights.
8. Tomasz Adamek - 14.61 - Could this be the Klitschko slayer? It's probably a pipe dream, but Adamek's team has eyes on pushing him as a heavyweight contender now that he's proven (kind of) that he can hang with the big boys.
9. Carl Froch - 14.60 - It wasn't pretty, and opinions of who won the fight varied wildly, but The Cobra managed to slip past Andre Dirrell last month. His next bout with Mikkel Kessler should have European boxing fans whipped into a frenzy.
10. Lucian Bute - 14.36 - What will Bute be hoping for when he steps in against Librado Andrade for the second time on November 28? Less late round drama and a KO victory this time.
The next 10: Miguel Cotto, Celestino Caballero, Fernando Montiel, Vitali Klitschko, Chris John, Juan Manuel Marquez, Robert Guerrero, Paul Williams, Chad Dawson, Mikkel Kessler
Posted by The Franchise
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2 comments:
King Arthur Abraham definitely deserves the top spot. No question about it.
Can't argue with his results. He is going to take the Super 6, and soon will be near the top of the Pound for Pound lists too.
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