Rankings (July 24): Kambosos vs Hughes controversy, big fights coming

Rankings go up Mondays. We actually will once again have back-to-back weeks with updates, because we’ve got a big one this week.

Ranked fights the next two weeks:

Welterweight: (1) Errol Spence Jr vs (2) Terence Crawford, July 29
Lightweight: (5) Isaac Cruz vs Giovanni Cabrera, July 29
Featherweight: (3) Robeisy Ramirez vs Satoshi Shimizu, July 25
Junior Featherweight: (1) Stephen Fulton Jr vs Naoya Inoue, July 25
Junior Featherweight: (9) Liam Davies vs Jason Cunningham, July 29
Bantamweight: (1) Nonito Donaire vs Alexandro Santiago, July 29
Women’s P4P: (6) Seniesa Estrada vs Leonela Yudica, July 28

Upcoming Fights: (4) Anthony Joshua vs (10) Dillian Whyte, Aug. 12 … (2) Oleksandr Usyk vs Daniel Dubois, Aug. 26 … (5) Zhilei Zhang vs (9) Joe Joyce, Sept. 23 … (1) Tyson Fury vs Francis Ngannou, Oct. 28

Upcoming Fights: TBA

Upcoming Fights: (2) Artur Beterbiev vs (3) Callum Smith, Aug. 19 … (4) Anthony Yarde vs TBA, Sept. 23

Upcoming Fights: (5) Christian Mbilli vs Demond Nicholson, Aug. 19 … (1) Canelo Alvarez vs Jermell Charlo, Sept. 30

Upcoming Fights: (4) Liam Smith vs (6) Chris Eubank Jr, Sept. 2

Upcoming Fights: TBA

Notes: Radzhab Butaev officially crossed our 15-month inactivity line and has nothing set or strongly rumored or anything, so he’s out. Alexis Rocha takes the No. 10 spot. Golden Boy’s on a roll!

Upcoming Fights: (1) Errol Spence Jr vs (2) Terence Crawford, July 29 … (4) Yordenis Ugas vs Keith Thurman, TBA

Notes: Oh, wow, Teofimo’s back after he fooled us all with his real and believable retirement, that we all believed and was real.

Upcoming Fights: (6) Gary Antuanne Russell vs Kent Cruz, Aug. 12

Notes: I’m about to go down two paths here.

Let’s start with this: I don’t need to respect the outcomes of fights, really. I’m not a sanctioning body. I don’t even respect belts, necessarily; my top four in every division isn’t the various dudes that hold belts. I wouldn’t even feel compelled to fully respect undisputed if by some hook or crook — and it’s boxing, it can happen — someone got to that status without actually beating the people we all know are the real top guys.

So I don’t feel I have to respect the scores of Josef Mason, Gerald Ritter, and David Sutherland. Two of them said George Kambosos Jr beat Maxi Hughes, one said it was even. I don’t care. That’s not the fight I saw. And I don’t even really feel the need to turn off the commentary and watch it again, even though as we all know, house commentators tend to be really biased against the A-side who’s signed to the house promotion, usually heavily favoring the promotional free agent with very little name value.

Maxi Hughes was better than Kambosos when they fought this past Saturday. I firmly believe that. I don’t see why I should pretend otherwise for the sake of engaging in traditions that don’t really exist. My rankings affect nobody’s money and nobody’s opportunities. They are my honest assessment, however wrong you think I might be.

The other path: I’m also not telling you I think Kambosos “sucks” now, or is “mediocre.” Got into this a bit on Saturday, but there are nearly 2,200 active lightweights listed on BoxRec. I really don’t think there’s any reasonable argument that Kambosos isn’t one of the 15 best of them at the very worst. I still think he’s top 10, if barely, and with young guys ready to make their moves in this division.

That’s not “mediocre.” There are literally into the thousands of fighters at the weight that Kambosos would absolutely dominate. If you are comparing him to the absolute top of the tops, yes, he comes up short — especially with the styles of Haney, Loma, Tank, and Shakur — but, man, I’m telling you, it’s a lot more enjoyable to watch boxing if you think there are more than three good fighters at a time, if your analysis of every fight isn’t “they’re both bad, really.” This is not a rewarding sport to follow, how does it aid your enjoyment to look at everything this way? I’m a hater, but have some limits.

Basically, I think you saw two good fighters on Saturday. One was better on the night. The other one officially won.

Oh, and Frank Martin fought and won on July 15. I didn’t think he was tremendously impressive, but I do think he did enough to get the W, and he showed he won’t totally crumble facing some adversity. Whether he’s prepared for the sort of adversity better opponents will bring is still up in the air.

Upcoming Fights: (5) Isaac Cruz vs Giovanni Cabrera, July 29

Upcoming Fights: (3) Oscar Valdez vs (4) Emanuel Navarrete, Aug. 12 … (1) Joe Cordina vs TBA, Sept. 30

Upcoming Fights: (3) Robeisy Ramirez vs Satoshi Shimizu, July 25 … (2) Luis Alberto Lopez vs Joet Gonzalez, Sept. 15

Upcoming Fights: (1) Stephen Fulton Jr vs Naoya Inoue, July 25 … (9) Liam Davies vs Jason Cunningham, July 29

Upcoming Fights: (1) Nonito Donaire vs Alexandro Santiago, July 29 … (8) Ryosuke Nishida vs Christian Medina, Aug. 11 … (2) Emmanuel Rodriguez vs Melvin Lopez, Aug. 12