From No. 5, the “Filipino Flash” fell five places to No. 10 in the mythical pound-for-pound list.
Donaire also lost the RING Magazine junior featherweight (super bantamweight) belt to Rigondeaux, who already walked away with the WBO and the WBA titles.
The Cuban amateur standout gave Donaire a boxing clinic, forcing the Filipino boxer to struggle against his defensive style during their unification title match over the weekend.
Rigondeaux’s efforts, however, was not enough to land him into the Top 10 pound-for-pound list.
According to RingTV’s Chuck Giampa, the RING's editorial board felt that Rigondeaux has yet to prove himself worthy of being among the other pound-for-pound kings.
“The Editorial Board decided against ranking Rigondeaux in the pound-for-pound top 10 at the present time, which in no way is meant to dismiss the Cuban amateur legend. Rigondeaux has proven to be the best 122-pound boxer in the world, however, the other fighters in the pound-for-pound top 10 have proven themselves in multiple weight classes,” he said.
The win wasn’t also enough for Rigondeaux to replace Donaire in the mythical list, Giampa added.
“It was decided to keep the 30-year-old veteran, who had a banner year in 2012, on the list,” he said.
“The loss to Rigondeaux was Donaire’s first in 12 years. In that time, he’s won major titles at flyweight (by knocking out then-undefeated and pound-for-pound-rated Vic Darchinyan), bantamweight (by knocking out then-pound-for-pound-rated Fernando Montiel) and junior featherweight, where he unified two major belts and earned THE RING title,” Giampa explained.
source: www.abs-cbnnews.com
