The king is dead, long live … well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Vasiliy Lomachenko’s reign at the top of Boxing Junkie’s pound-for-pound list is over after his unanimous-decision loss to upstart Teofimo Lopez Jr. on Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
The Ukrainian star drops to No. 7, which allows Terence Crawford (No. 2 going into Saturday) to assume the No. 1 position.
Lopez enters at No. 6, behind only Crawford, No. 2 Canelo Alvarez, No. 3 Naoya Inoue, No. 4 Oleksandr Usyk and No. 5 Errol Spence Jr.
Why not higher? After all, he defeated the top man on the list. Well, the Honduran-American has a single victory over an elite opponent, one who many have described as undersized at lightweight. Even Lopez acknowledged that.
Those above him are more accomplished than he is at the moment.
It was a fantastic victory for the 23-year-old from Brooklyn, more than significant enough to launch him into the Top 10, but he has more work to do to reach the top.
Kosei Tanaka (honorable mention last week) drops out to make room for Lopez.
Boxing Junkie also took advantage of the pound-for-pound shakeup to make a few more adjustments to better reflect recent results.
Of course, more changes could come soon. For example, Inoue faces Jason Moloney on Oct. 31, Usyk takes on Derek Chisora on the same day. Spence fights Danny Garcia on Dec. 5. No. 8 Tyson Fury is expected to fight on that date. And others on the list also have fights coming up.
Stay tuned.
The Boxing Junkie pound-for-pound list is below.
BOXING JUNKIE
POUND-FOR-POUND
- Terence Crawford
- Canelo Alvarez
- Naoya Inoue
- Oleksandr Usyk
- Errol Spence Jr.
- Teofimo Lopez
- Vasiliy Lomachenko
- Tyson Fury
- Gennadiy Golovkin
- Juan Francisco Estrada
- Mikey Garcia
- Artur Beterbiev
- Manny Pacquiao
- Jermell Charlo
- Josh Taylor
Honorable mention (alphabetical order): Miguel Berchelt, Mairis Briedis, Jermall Charlo, Leo Santa Cruz and Srisaket Sor Rungvisai.