July Rankings: Lightweight Division

With K-1 crowning a new king in this division, it seemed like now was the time to add some rankings.  The tricky thing is, this division is definitely a work in progress.  Prior to this Grand Prix, most organizations had weight classes of either 60 or 62, with the next highest class coming at 65.  K-1, for reasons not entirely clear, opted to buck the standard and go with a 63kg division.  I'm following their lead and using that as the benchmark.

The downside of this is that some very talented fighters are left out in the cold.  Best example - Orono Wor Petchpun, a tough Thai fighter that deserves to be ranked, but these days fights regularly up at 65kg. 

As a result, for now, we're limiting this division to a top 10.  Hopefully in the coming months, as K-1 continues to establish this division, we'll see more fighters settling at this 63kg weight, and have a better sense who should be ranked here.

Finally, as this division is still developing, we won't be updating these rankings every month, and instead will put up new LW rankings every other month.

We acknowledge that all rankings are inherently subjective, however we have set the following criteria to help determine rankings:

These rankings are meant to represent fighters throughout kickboxing, not only in K-1.

Rankings are based on recent win/loss records in the ring. 

Rankings are divided into three weight classes - Heavyweight, for those fights at 85 kg and up, Middleweight, for fights at either 70 or 72 kg, and Lightweight, for fights at 63 kg.