A World Champion Not Ranked in the Top Ten of Their Division?

Top ten of what ? P4P ?

If it's P4P, the list would be too long.

 

Michael Bentt?

I am half cut so I may be missing the point of the question

 

Liam Smith

 

Okay. I get it now.

I'm not sure I know a boxer that falls into such category. Problem is, once a boxer defeated a champion, that man will mostly be included into list of top ten in the division. I've seen guys who are probably positioned around 30th in boxrec and immediately have his name around top ten once he got himself the belt, either by defeating previous champion or filling the vacancy.

 

Manuel Charr? That counts right?

 

www.premierboxingorganisation.com
You can see all the world title fights from 1993 onwards with the opponents pre-fight rankings, many are defending their titles with independent rankings outside the top 10

 

Brian Magee, when he beat Jaime Barboza to become interim WBA super middleweight champ. He might've been in that organization's top-10, but nobody else in their right mind had Magee or Barboza even top 40.

 

Eubank Jr?

 

^ and if that doesn't count, then you are putting forth some incredibly narrow criteria. For the most part the participants in a world title fight are going to be an incumbent versus either a mandatory (guaranteed ranked at least top 15) or a voluntary (in which case, they're usually a prohibitive underdog, and even then a majority of times you won't find champs with the gall to dip too far past the number 15 or 20 ranked contender within their org). To become champion without being top-10 by any organization you'd need to be a voluntary challenger who sprang an enormous upset. Not sure how often that has occurred.

If you mean somebody who managed to grab a belt, either for a vacant world title or catching either a weak paper champ or somebody on an off night or with an injury - but who is by general consensus among fans, writers, and rival organizations, nowhere close to being top-10 h2h in the division - well, that's more common. All too common.

 

Magee was ranked 13 PBO @ 168 when he fought Barboza. Barboza was ranked 62.

 

Yeah, that is the one I frequently cite when people ask what the most ridiculous modern fight sanctioned as being for a "world championship" was... (although I know some just offhandedly dismiss interim belts as invalid anyway, so ...grey area)

Magee was better than Barboza, in fact I was even a fan of his, but there were at least 2-3 dozen obviously better (h2h) and more accomplished fighters at 168 as of then.

 

How about Luis Santana after his "win" over Terry Norris?

 

The PBO were probably a bit overly generous to Magee, there. When he fought Barboza he was coming directly off a stoppage loss to Lucian Bute, and before that had been on a 9-0-1 run since his kayo loss to Carl Froch during which he didn't fight a single top 15 world contender. His best opponents in that span were fellow shot former contender Mads Larsen to capture the vacant Euro title, and Tony Oakey for the British title a few years earlier, whom Magee fought to a draw.

here are the Ring Magazine super middleweight rankings for 2010 & 2011:


2010

1. Andre Ward
2. Lucian Bute
3. Carl Froch
4. Mikkel Kessler
5. Andre Dirrell
6. Sakio Bika
7. Robert Stieglitz
8. Librado Andrade
9. Glen Johnson
10. Arthur Abraham

2011
Andre Ward, Champion

1. Lucian Bute
2. Mikkel Kessler
3. Carl Froch
4. Robert Stieglitz
5. Sakio Bika
6. Thomas Oosthuizen
7. George Groves
8. Glen Johnson
9. Arthur Abraham
10. James DeGale

There were at least a handful of contenders separating Magee from that group. #13 was probably a little too high for him in mid-2011.