DOES ANDRE WARD STILL DESERVE TO BE ON THE LIST?
1. Floyd Mayweather (46-0, 26 KOs)
WBC and WBA welterweight champion
Not on the top of his game anymore as evidenced by his majority win last time out against Marcos Maidana. Still he is the best fighter in the game until he gets beat.
2. Andre Ward (27-0, 14 KOs)
WBA supermiddleweight champion
Ward at this stage is semi-retired. He currently is consumed with on-going litigation with his promoter Dan Goossen. Ward has also filed a federal lawsuit against Gooosen claiming he violated the Muhammed Ali Act by not providing financial disclosure for some of his earlier fights. Goossen is firing back with a 10 million dollar defamation suit. As this thing gets uglier don’t expect to see Ward in any significant fights anytime soon. I added him here, but he has no fights scheduled this year.
Andre Ward-Fighting in court more than the ring.
3. Guillermo Rigondeaux (14-0, 9 KOs)
WBO and WBA super bantamweight champion
Technically gifted and great all around talent. Now that his contract with Top Rank is over, a significant fight with WBC champion Leo Santa Cruz looms on the horizen. Many claim of the Cubans boring style, but against the right opponent such as Santa Cruz should make for an entertaining affair.
4. Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KOs)
WBO welterweight champion
Has slipped a little in the last few years but has still picked up some notable wins since being stopped by Juan Manuel Marquez. Beat an undefeated Tim Bradley by a wide margin to get back his WBO welterweight title, and the fight before that he shut out Brandon Rios. The Filipino congressman faces WBO junior welterweight belt-holder Chris Algieri in November in Macau, China.
5. Gennady Golovkin (30-0, 27 KOs)
WBA middleweight champion
The consensus is that he is highly avoided and hasn’t fought elite competition at middleweight. That mostly is a product of a weak division at the moment. His significant victories however should
Gennady Golovkin
not be overlooked. His impressive 3rd round KO of Daniel Geale was something to behold. He has the “IT” factor. He knocked out Geale with a punch while just being hit himself simultaneously. While his resume is somewhat limited, the manner in which he has dismatched normally durable foes must be taken into account. You can only beat those in front of you, and he has bulldozed all of them out of his path. Logic says he’s too small to beat a fighter such as Ward if he were to move up to 168. However it’s the biggest fight for both, as Ward has beaten everyone of note at 168, and Miguel Cotto who is the lineal champion at 160, is reluctant to fight such a dangerous opponent without a large fan base.
-NOTABLES– Carl Froch, Danny Garcia, Saul Alvarez, Roman Gonzalez, Tim Bradley, Bernard Hopkins, Adonis Stevenson, Sergei Kovalev, Juan Manuel Marquez.
-Kevin Perry