Roman Gonzalez should rank above Andre Ward

I'm not going to go mental with this, but here's a brief outline of my thinking.

RECORD AND RECENT RECORD: Ward is 27-0 but Gonzalez has moved to 40-0, Ward has fourteen knockouts, Gonzalez has 34.

Recently though, it's all Ward. Ward has legal difficulties and he has injuries, but not of that stops the hands of time nor progress. Since Ward beat Dawson at 168lbs in late 2012, Gonzalez has beaten eight men, and although a lot of those fights were stay-busy, they include Francisco Rodriguez Jnr, now the #1 contender and #1 fighter in the champion-less 105lb division and Juan Estrada, who has become the #1 contender to the title held by Yaegashi and now by Roman Gonzalez - Gonzalez having beaten Yaegashi today. Estrada is now in my p4p top ten, Yaegashi was until Gonzalez picked him off.

So even if we leave aside Gonzalez's lesser competition - and some of them such as Oscar Blanquet were good - since Ward-Dawson, Gonzalez has beaten three indisputably world class fighters, Yaegashi, Estrada and Rodriguez Jnr.

It is reasonable to compare Ward's best wins to Roman's even though they arguably lie beyond any recent snapshot's remit. Kessler, Froch and Dawson are likely his finest wins. I suspect there is very little in that, but I think Estrada is the best of the bunch as an actual fact and certainly is better than Ward at 168 and Froch full stop. Ward's other top wins - Abraham, Bika, Rodriguez - compare favourably to Roman's next clutch, but for Gonzalez a great deal of travel was required - both around the world (to Japan to take on Niida and Takayama) as well as through the weights...


WEIGHT JUMPING: Ward: none. Gonzalez has shown bulldozer at three different weights between 105 and 112, three different weights, but close together enough that we can't over-burden him with credit. Still, Gonzalez has some thirteen more wins under his belt than Ward and these were earned at three different weight classes. Terrifyingly, Gonzalez has never looked physically better than he did against Yaegashi and it's likely he's only now, at twenty-seven, found his best weight. For Ward, it's home in every sense, with no travelling done either in the world or the weights.

DOMINANCE: This does tie in with the above; Gonzalez has dominance at three different weights and that must be accounted for. Overall though, there's nothing in this. Many have Gonzalez-Estrada close, though, so it could be suggested that Ward has the edge - then again, Gonzalez's dominance is stretched over many more fights.

SKILLSET: Ward would be rated the physical superior of Gonzalez were it not for Gonzalez's vastly superior power which, again, he has carried through multiple weights. This confuses matters. Ward has the better defence, Gonzalez has the better offence. Very little to decide this, especially with some questions hanging over Ward.

In the end, it's probably a question of how far you allow the string to go back. If you allow Ward's accumulated excellence to go all the way back to 2009 the edge must go to him. But Gonzalez's recent excellence is the peach for me. You will slide if you don't fight - Ward is a once a year man, whatever the reason. Gonzalez has fought more than Ward in 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 - he's beaten three world-class fighters since Ward beat Dawson. He has the momentum and for me it's time to move Gonzalez to the #2 birth.

01 - Floyd Mayweather
02 - Roman Gonzalez
03 - Andre Ward
04 - Manny Pacquiao
05 - Wladimir Klitschko
06 - Timothy Bradley
07 - Juan Manuel Marquez
08 - Guillermo Rigondeaux
09 - Carl Froch
10 - Juan Francisco Estrada

 

Segura made it into the p4p, almost universally as I remember, and Viloria made the TBRB p4p list. But generally speaking you're right.