Teddy Atlas’ recent Top-10 Pound-for-Pound list didn’t include GGG; Atlas explains why

By James Slater - 02/02/2017 - Comments

Love him or loathe him, there is no denying Teddy Atlas is about as passionate about the sport of boxing as any expert/pundit you could come up with. Atlas has a long history in the sport – training a young Mike Tyson way back in the early 1980s being one famous and well-documented highlight – and he has trained many other world champions.

Still, despite his passion, and a great deal of knowledge, picked up over the decades in which he has been involved in boxing, Atlas is not without his critics – far from it in fact. And just recently having filed his Top-10 Pound-for-Pound list for ESPN.com, Teddy drew the sting of many a fight fan. Why? Because his top-10 lacked one prominent fighter: feared middleweight king Gennady Golovkin; a fighter who is on EVERY SINGLE p-4-p list you can find today barring Teddy’s.

Here are the ESB rankings for February 2017

Here is Atlas’ top-10:

Vasyl Lomachenko

Terence Crawford

Andre Ward

Keith Thurman

Sergey Kovalev

Roman Gonzalez

Guillermo Rigondeaux

Canelo Alvarez

Manny Pacquiao

Errol Spence Jr.

A good, interesting top-10, yes, but shouldn’t Atlas have placed GGG in there somewhere, perhaps in place of Spence Jr (who, although a huge talent, is still untested at world championship level). Atlas wrote a response to the quite incredible backlash he received.

“I should begin by saying I do not have any bias against GGG,” Atlas wrote on ESPN.com. “In fact, I love to watch his fights and I believe his style is simple, and his cleverly chosen words to the media have been good for the sport. As a matter of fact, if this was a list of the top 11, he would be on it.”

Atlas goes on to explain how he feels GGG – who has featured in his previous top-10’s – “may be slipping” and that the other fighters on his list have “better technique” than the 36-0(33) star. Atlas says some of GGG’s technical flaws where exposed in the Kell Brook fight and that other fighters, such as Canelo, have shown improvement, while he has not.

Interestingly, Atlas says he would pick GGG to beat Canelo if they fought right now, but that this does not mean he should place Golovkin in his top-10. Interesting indeed, and Atlas says he fully understands the criticism his subjective list received. Still, it’s unlikely those people who so lambasted Teddy’s list will forgive him for leaving out GGG – even if, as Teddy also states, a fighter’s popularity has next to nothing to do with his p-4-p ranking.

Here’s another top-10 you may or may not agree with: