Secondsout Pound-For-Pound List For December

By Matthew Hurley: Secondsout.com’s pound-for-pound list for the month of December consists of three main moves among the ten fighters ranked.

On the strength of his three recent victories over Brandon Rios, Timothy Bradley and most recently Chris Algieri, Manny Pacquiao has regained the number two position behind Floyd Mayweather. Although not quite the dynamo of years past, the PacMan has shown remarkable resilience and proof positive that his speed, athleticism and ability to land punches from odd angles will give him significant advantages over just about every fighter from junior welterweight to welterweight.

The move drops heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko to the number three position. This change is primarily based on Pacquiao’s overall level of competition. It is not a criticism of Dr. Steelhammer, who recently stopped Alex Leapi and Kubrat Pulev in impressive fashion. Wladimir has not lost since 2004 against Lamon Brewster, a loss he avenged, and has since beat back twenty-one challengers in varying degrees of dominance.

Super middleweight title holder Andre Ward, who has not fought in over a year and has nothing scheduled for 2015 has been dropped entirely because of inactivity.

The current list reads as follows:

1/ Floyd Mayweather – welterweight / junior middleweight

2/ Manny Pacquiao – welterweight

3/ Wladimir Klitschko – heavyweight

4/ Gennady Golovkin – middleweight

5/ Guillermo Rigendeaux – junior featherweight

6/ Timothy Bradley – welterweight

7/ Juan Manuel Marquez – welterweight

8/ Roman Gonzalez – flyweight

9/ Sergey Kovalev – light heavyweight

10/ Mikey Garcia – super featherweight

Super featherweight titlist Mikey Garcia, who beat Juan Carlos Burgos in January but has nothing yet scheduled for 2015 is in danger of being dropped for inactivity.

Light heavyweight titlist Sergey Kovalev continues to rise in the rankings based mainly on his dominating win over Bernard Hopkins.

Middleweight titlist Gennady Golovkin remains at number four. Junior featherweight Guillermo Rigendeaux remains at number five. Welterweights Timothy Bradley and Juan Manuel Marquez remain at six and seven respectively, while flyweight Roman Gonzalez moves up to number eight in the absence of Andre Ward.

Secondsout.com will provide monthly updates to its mythical pound-for-pound list and we welcome any comments.

Matthew Hurley is a full time member of the Boxing Writers Association of American. His first book on boxing, Ringside Reflections, can be purchased at Amazon.com.