The Ring Magazine Still Ranks Manny Pacquiao as World’s No. 1 Boxer

The Ring Magazine has our very own Manny Pacquiao at no. 1 of their pound-for-pound world rankings contrary to the recent rankings released by ESPN and Sports Illustrated.

In the latest world rankings released by ESPN and Sports Illustrated on November 14 and November 17 via their websites, Pacquiao has dropped to 2nd place while Floyd Mayweather, Jr. moved up to top place as their new Pound-for-Pound King.

The recent movement in the rankings was brought about by Pacquiao’s latest fight with Mexican Juan Manuel Marquez on November 13. As ESPN’s Dan Rafael noted:

Pacquiao looked confused at times and lacked snap on his punches in a less-than-stellar outing. It just wasn’t the kind of performance we have come to expect from Pacquiao, especially in light of the fact that Marquez had been wiped out by Mayweather in 2009 in his only other welterweight fight.”

However, The Ring Magazine Pound for Pound list known as the official list of the current pound for pound professional boxing rankings, has still Manny Pacquiao at no. 1.

Here’s the Top 10 rankings according to The Ring:

1. Manny Pacquiao 54-3-2 (38 KO) Welterweight
WBO Welterweight Champion, WBO Super Champion,
WBC Emeritus Champion, WBC Diamond Champion

2. Floyd Mayweather Jr 42-0 (26 KO) Welterweight
WBC Welterweight Champion, WBC Emeritus Champion

3. Sergio Gabriel Martínez 48-2-2 (27 KO) Middleweight
The Ring Middleweight Champion, WBC Diamond Champion

4. Nonito Donaire 27-1 (18 KO) Bantamweight
WBO Bantamweight Champion

5. Juan Manuel Márquez 53-6-1 (39 KO) Lightweight
Unified WBA and Super WBO Lightweight Champion, The Ring Lightweight Champion

6. Wladimir Klitschko 56-3 (49 KO) Heavyweight
Unified WBA, Super WBO and IBF Heavyweight Champion, The Ring Heavyweight Champion

7. Pongsaklek Wonjongkam 83-3-1 (45 KO) Flyweight
WBC Flyweight Champion, The Ring Flyweight Champion

8. Timothy Bradley 28-0-0-1 (12 KO) Junior welterweight
WBC (in recess) and WBO Junior welterweight Champion

9. Giovani Segura 28-1-1 (24 KO)

10. Andre Ward 24-0 (13 KO)
Super middleweight, Super WBA Super middleweight Champion

The “Pound for pound” rankings were developed by boxing writers during the era of Sugar Ray Robinson to rank the world’s greatest fighters irrespective of their weight division.

The nature of these rankings is subjective and raises an interesting question: How do you compensate for differences in size, power and historical time periods when evaluating boxers?

As for me, the only way to determine who is the World’s Pound-for-pound King is a face-off between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquaio.