pictured: Lucian Bute
by Joe Kowalski
http://www.castefootball.us
(10/26/07) With Lucian Bute’s knockout victory over Alejandro Berrio, whites now hold 16 of the 20 belts from middleweight to heavyweight. Our fighters hold all the titles at heavyweight, super middleweight and middleweight. Only three black champions exist at the upper weights and two of them (Chad Dawson and Steve Cunningham) have upcoming matches against white challengers (Adrian Diaconu and Tomasz Adamek). At this rate, we could see whites holding all the belts from 160 to heavyweight sometime in 2008.
Of course, white fighters are not as prevalent at the lighter classes but we do have success at these weights as well. Dimitri Kirilov recently picked up the IBF super flyweight belt with a unanimous decision over Jose Navarro. He joins Wladimir Sidorenko (super flyweight), Steve Molitor (super bantamweight) Gavin Rees and Paulie Malignaggi (both junior welterweights) as white champs at the lower divisions. Alex Arthur (super featherweight) and Michael Katsidis (lightweight) are both WBO “interim” champions and will fight for belts very soon.Pound-for-Pound Ratings
Yahoo has three white fighters (Joe Calzaghe, Ricky Hatton, Kelly Pavlik) in their top 10 “pound-for-pound” list and five in the top 14. Here are their complete rankings:
1. Floyd Mayweather
2. Manny Pacquaio
3. Joe Calzaghe
4. Bernard Hopkins
5. Juan Manuel Marquez
6. Miguel Cotto
7. Ricky Hatton
8. Israel Vasquez
9. Kelly Pavlik
10. Winky Wright
Mikkel Kessler is in at number 12 and Wladimir Klitschko is ranked 14th. While I might quibble with ranking Cotto over Hatton, this is a fair assessment of the top fighters in the sport. Compare it to the biased Ring magazine rankings, which place Calzaghe 8th and Hatton 9th. Kelly Pavlik did not even make the Ring list despite his KOs of Jermaine Taylor and Edison Miranda. Ring has all white fighters rated below Winky Wright who is 1-1-1 in his last three fights.
Our Top 10
1. Ricky Hatton
2. Joe Calzaghe
3. Mikkel Kessler
4. Kelly Pavlik
5. Wladimir Klitschko
6. Zsoldt Erdei
7. Arthur Abraham
8. Wladimir Sidorenko
9. Clinton Woods
10. Lucian Bute
Calzaghe-Kessler
The winner of Calzaghe-Kessler should rise to the top spot in my list. But Hatton will have a chance to regain his position should he defeat Floyd Mayweather on December 8th. In fact, Ricky should be considered the top pound-for-pound fighter in the world should he pull the upset. But given the realities of racism, many “experts” will be hesitant to proclaim a white man as the best fighter on the planet.
The Calzaghe-Kessler clash will happen live on HBO on November 3. The winner will be in a position to fight Bernard Hopkins in another potential Caste-breaking bout. Gavin Rees and Enzo Maccarenelli will be on the undercard defending their belts as well.