By David Finger

The WBO released their May rankings earlier today, and as is often the case in boxing, the biggest news came in the heavyweight division. Right off the bat, heavyweight champion Joseph Parker (23-0, 18 KOs) was named “WBO Champion of the Month” for the month of May after successfully defending his title on May 6th against last minute substitute #14 ranked Razvan Cojanu. Cojanu, who took the fight on short notice after original opponent Hughie Fury pulled out with an injury, dropped out of the WBO rankings after the fight. Replacing him in the WBO rankings is undefeated Otto Wallin (18-0, 12 KOs) of Sweden, who moves into the rankings at #14. The 26-year old Wallin won the WBA Continental heavyweight title in his last fight back on April 22 with a TKO over Gianluca Mandras of Italy.

The biggest news in the heavyweight rankings remained the question of who would be #1 after Hughie Fury (20-0, 10 KOs) was forced to pull out of his fight with Parker due to an injury. Although there were concerns with some boxing fans that Hughie Fury (20-0, 10 KOs) may not hold onto his #1 ranking due to inactivity (Fury has not fought since April 30th of last year) he nonetheless remains the #1 contender at heavyweight and as a result remains the frontrunner for Joseph Parker’s next title defense.

In other heavyweight news Tokyo, Japan’s Kyotaro Fujimoto (17-1, 9 KOs) inches closer to his dream of becoming the first Japanese heavyweight to fight for a world title as he moves up from #13 to #9. Fujimoto has already established himself as the most successful Japanese heavyweight in the nation’s history, but after a TKO over Samoan Herman Ene Purcell on May 8th in a fight for the WBO Asia Pacific title, Fujimoto moves into the top ten.

Undefeated Chinese heavyweight Zhilei Zhang (16-0, 12 KOs) moves from #15 to #13 after stopping Mark Brown on April 29. He also scored another stoppage last week over Curtis Harper, although with that fight coming so recently it is unclear if it was considered by the WBO before the ratings were compiled.

Andrey Fedosov (29-3, 24 KOs) drops out of the rankings. Fedosov was ranked #12 but had not fought since June 11, 2016, when he stopped Mario Heredia for the WBA Fedalatin title.

In other changes at heavyweight, Jarrell Miller drops from #3 to #5 while Kubrat Pulev (25-1, 13 KOs) moves from #5 to #3. Andriy Rudenko (31-2, 19 KOs) drops two spots from #9 to #11 while Agit Kabayel (16-0, 12 KOs) drops from #11 to #12. 44-year old Amir Mansour (23-2-1, 16 KOs) moves back into the world rankings at #15 after winning a majority decision over Travis Kauffman on March 17.

Christian Hammer (#2), Andy Ruiz (#4), Tom Schwartz (#6), Dominic Breazeale (#7), Dillian Whyte (#8), and Luis Ortiz (#10) saw no change in their rankings.