The featherweight division has been ravaged in the last two to three years by fighters moving up in weight and abandoning the weight class. However, at the same time, a flock of bantamweights and super bantamweights have moved up. Now the featherweight division in boxing is one of the deepest and most exciting in the sport, with some huge potential bouts that can be made.

Featherweight division rankings last updated August, 2010.

1. Chris John – John is seemingly the sole non-defector to higher weight classes and greener pastures from his fellow contemporaries. That includes the man he holds a victory over, Juan Manuel Marquez. He is undefeated in 45 fights and has been a champion for over 5 years. After righting the wrong that was the draw against Rocky Juarez, John has been beset by injuries and illness, and has been inactive.
2. Juan Manuel Lopez - Finally making his featherweight debut, JuanMa looked great in taking out respected Steven Luevano, one of the division’s best prior to that bout. Lopez seemed very comfortable at featherweight, and one has to consider that his performance against Mtagwa could have been due to weight-cutting. Next up is an interesting bout against Bernabe Concepcion. He crushed Bernabe Concepcion, and now we can look forward to one of the best fights of the year, JuanMa Lopez vs. Rafa Marquez.
3. Celestino Caballero – Caballero dominated Daud Yordan in his featherweight debut, and now wants to move immediately to bigger and better things. With JuanMa, Gamboa and John all lurking in the division, a lot of intriguing bouts can be made, although everyone seems a bit wary of facing the tall, tricky Caballero.
4. Yuriorkis Gamboa – While Gamboa looked far more impressive than Lopez did in facing a mutual opponent as well as in appearing on the same televised HBO card, Lopez is coming off a win against a far superior opponent, especially for this division. Gamboa has improved his all-around game however, and has shown fewer weaknesses than he did in his early fights on television. Since beating Mtagwa, he also added a win over previously unbeaten Jonathan Victor Barros. He’ll face Orlando Salido next, after Elio Rojas pulled out of their bout.
5. Rafael Marquez - Marquez looked solid in thumping Israel Vazquez in their fourth encounter, but how much of that was due to Vazquez being completely shopworn? Marquez isn’t taking any more tune-ups to find out, he’s jumping straight up to battle JuanMa in what will be an extremely interesting encounter.
6. Daniel Ponce de Leon – Ponce has won five fights since his embarrassing first round stoppage loss to Juan Manuel Lopez. During this time he’s shown improved technical skills than his previous free-winging ways.
7. Elio Rojas- Rojas defended his WBC title by besting contender Guty Espadas Jr. in February. He’s on a three fight winning streak since his lone, surprising, career setback, however those three wins have been spaced over three years.
8. Orlando Salido – Salido overturned his previous split decision loss to Cristobal Cruz by besting him via SD in their recent outing. He’s now the IBF titleholder in the deep featherweight division, and gets a chance at an upset bid against Yuriorkis Gamboa in September.
9. Cristobal Cruz – His record isn’t pretty, but Cruz has done a lot of good work in the featherweight division recently. He split a two-fight series with Salido, losing the most recent encounter via split decision, and also beat Jorge Solis over the past two years.
10. Steven Luevano – Luevano got taken to the woodshed by Lopez. While showing good effort, he didn’t have the extra gear that Lopez had and therefore could not compete with him. His lack of power of course doesn’t help him there either. After some close calls in previous encounters against challengers Concepcion and Santiago, the Lopez fight may have signaled a turning point in his career. He needs to look good and win big, and do it soon.

Other names: Rocky Juarez, Terdsak Jandaeng, Miguel Angel Garcia, Rogers Mtagwa, Mario Santiago, Guty Espadas Jr., Jhonny Gonzalez, Bernabe Concepcion, Ricardo Castillo, Juan Carlos Burgos

More Boxing Weight Class Rankings

• 118-122 lbs – Super Bantamweight Rankings
• 126-230 lbs – Super Featherweight Rankings

Written by: Jake Emen