Get ready to see Andre Ward leap out of a tie with Nonito Donaire and into sole possession of first place in the Northern California boxing writers poll being conducted this week.
The two have been tied steadfastly atop the poll, which is conducted by Comcast SportsNet Bay Area?s Ryan Maquinana. But Ward?s commanding victory Saturday over Chad Dawson makes Ward?s victims list even more impressive than Donaire?s.
You can even make a case for Ward?s being even otherwise with Donaire in the rather abstract pound-for-pound genre. Ward fights at 168 pounds and Donaire currently is a 122-pound champion, so we wouldn?t want to see these two actually fight, but boxing folks now love to project how things would be if everyone were, say, a welterweight.
I?ve been voting Donaire No. 1 and Ward No. 2 in the NorCal poll, so I guess mine is a swing vote now that I have to vote Ward No. 1 and Donaire No. 2. That pretty much ensures Ward will ascend to No. 1.
It?s a significant milestone I declared Donaire the Bay Area?s top fighter pound-for-pound four years ago and never wavered until now, having spent far more time around Donaire than around Ward.
The NorCal result also reflects the shuffle in the top five of The Ring magazine?s world pound-for-pound rankings, in which Ward moved from fifth to third this week, with Donaire sliding from fourth to fifth.
Ward won the Showtime Super Six super-middleweight championship that ran from 2009 to 2011, beating Carl Froch in the championship bout. Ward also has beaten Mikkel Kessler, Arthur Abraham, Edison Miranda, Sakio Bika and Allan Green during the past three years. Donaire?s victims list, although headed by Fernando Montiel, is simply less gaudy.
Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquaio have been the top two for about a half-decade and Donaire has been in the top five for three years. Also in the top five is middleweight champion Sergio Martinez, who fights Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. this Saturday on HBO pay-per-view, so we might as well have waited until that fight to rescramble the top five.
There?s not much Donaire can do about his dips in these polls until Oct. 13, when he meets Toshiaki Nishioka in Carson, Calif., with each defending a 122-pound belt or two. That?s part of Donaire?s quest to unify the titles in that weight class, probably the most attractive in the bantamweight-featherweight realms these days.
Ward?s environs have been more attractive, though. A comparison between Showtime?s Super Six event that Ward won and Showtime?s four-man bantamweight tournament of 2010-2011 definitely favors Ward?s feats, so this may be a permanent changing of the guard between the Bay Area?s best two fighters.
But the important thing is that the Bay Area has two of the world?s foremost boxers and also has Robert Guerrero, a strong third after his convincing welterweight victory July 28 over Selcuk Aydin. It?s the combination that is lifting the Bay Area boxing scene to unprecedented heights.
MORE ON THE NORCAL RANKINGS: San Francisco junior welterweight Karim Mayfield is almost sure to finish fourth in the wake of Vicente Escobedo?s meek showing against Adrien Broner this summer . . .I voted flyweight Glenn Donaire (Nonito’s older brother) sixth on the eve of his bout Friday against Omar Soto in Tampa, Fla.
