Rankings: Wood, Billam-Smith, Lopez make strong moves

Rankings go up on Mondays. No update next week, because there’s basically nothing on the slate this weekend.

Ranked fights the next two weeks:

• Middleweight: (3) Jaime Munguia vs (7) Sergiy Derevyanchenko, June 10
• Junior Welterweight: (2) Josh Taylor vs (9) Teofimo Lopez, June 10
• Flyweight: (1) Sunny Edwards vs Andres Campos, June 10
• Flyweight: (5) Felix Alvarado vs Armando Hernandez, June 10
• Junior Flyweight: (5) Daniel Matellon vs (10) Carlos Canizales, June 10

Upcoming Fights: TBA

Notes: Chris Billam-Smith’s upset of Lawrence Okolie was one of the weirdest, damnedest upsets you’ll ever see. It’s hard to fixate on the scoring, which I thought was fair but worth a discussion, because honestly, even if you think two of the three knockdowns were questionable at best, Okolie probably should have lost even more points than he did on deductions, or even been disqualified at some point.

Okolie is still a contender, could very well get that belt back or win some other belt, and still has his strengths. But it was always about someone eventually exploiting his weaknesses, and now that it’s been done once, opponents will come in with more confidence than ever that it can be done again. Okolie will have to make some changes, he’ll have to get back to it and move forward. That’s the nature of boxing or any other competition.

Upcoming Fights: TBA

Upcoming Fights: (2) Artur Beterbiev vs (3) Callum Smith, Aug. 19

Upcoming Fights: TBA

Upcoming Fights: (3) Jaime Munguia vs (7) Sergiy Derevyanchenko, June 10 … (4) Carlos Adames vs Julian Williams, June 24 … (5) Liam Smith vs (8) Chris Eubank Jr, July 1 … (7) Erislandy Lara vs Danny Garcia, Aug. 5

Upcoming Fights: (2) Tim Tszyu vs Carlos Ocampo, June 17 … (7) Erickson Lubin vs Luis Arias, June 24

Upcoming Fights: (5) Vergil Ortiz Jr vs (6) Eimantas Stanionis, July 8 … (1) Errol Spence Jr vs (2) Terence Crawford, July 29

Upcoming Fights: (2) Josh Taylor vs (9) Teofimo Lopez, June 10 … (1) Regis Prograis vs TBA, June 17

Upcoming Fights: (6) George Kambosos Jr vs Maxi Hughes, TBA

Upcoming Fights: TBA

Notes: Featherweight continues to be ridiculous to rank. We thought we were getting some clarity a few months ago, and now it’s right back to a mish-mash of people just right on each others level.

So we’ve got some rearranging. Mauricio Lara was awful in his loss to Leigh Wood, and he didn’t make weight in the first place. If the fight weren’t in the UK, he very well might have, dropping the last few lbs over the last few days, and who knows if he would have been any good in the ring? But it would have been dangerous, because it’s clear he just wasn’t prepared for that fight.

That’s not to take anything from Wood, who just plain beat him, and was beating him in February until he suddenly wasn’t. I think he deserves the No. 1 slot right now. But I think you can also make an argument for Luis Alberto Lopez, who torched Michael Conlan on the same day, or for Robeisy Ramirez, or for Rey Vargas. Brandon Figueroa looks dangerous. Lara still could be. And Ruben Villa lurks as a guy who has beaten Lopez, gave Emanuel Navarrete a tough fight, and might damn well beat everyone here if he gets the chance.

As long as the fighters are fighting, and preferably against one another, I love a division like this. Featherweight a couple years ago, even a year ago, was filled with good fighters either not fighting or not fighting one another. That was hard to rank in a way that was way less fun than this.

Upcoming Fights: (3) Robeisy Ramirez vs Satoshi Shimizu, July 25

Upcoming Fights: (5) Ra’eese Aleem vs (10) Sam Goodman, June 17 … (1) Stephen Fulton Jr vs Naoya Inoue, July 25 … (9) Liam Davies vs Jason Cunningham, July 29

Upcoming Fights: (1) Nonito Donaire vs (9) Alexandro Santiago, TBA … (2) Emmanuel Rodriguez vs Melvin Lopez, TBA

Upcoming Fights: (2) Joshua Franco vs (4) Kazuto Ioka, June 24 … (6) Fernando Martinez vs Jade Bornea, June 24

Upcoming Fights: (1) Sunny Edwards vs Andres Campos, June 10 … (5) Felix Alvarado vs Armando Hernandez, June 10 … (9) Taku Kuwahara vs Wulan Tuolehazi, July 11

Upcoming Fights: (5) Daniel Matellon vs (10) Carlos Canizales, June 10 … (5) Sivenathi Nontshinga vs (10) Regie Suganob, June 16

Notes: Oscar Collazo looked in for a long night with Melvin Jerusalem this past Saturday. Then he got to work on the body, flipped the bout around, and Jerusalem gave it up after seven rounds, Collazo leaving with the WBO title. Along with the Shigeokas, he is part of a really fun trio of “new blood” at 105, and you’d like to hope any of them will get the chance to fight Pradabsri or Niymontrong. If they do and win, then they take over the division. If they do and don’t, then at least we got intriguing matchups.

Upcoming Fights: TBA