Nieky Holzken (R) (James Law/GLORY)

Combat Press Kickboxing Rankings: January 2015

As kickboxing looks to establish itself from both boxing and MMA with GLORY, K-1 and Lion Fight, fighters are constantly jockeying for position in the eyes (and rankings) of the media.

Every month, Combat Press will rank each weight class from heavyweight to featherweight, as well as the pound-for-pound rankings.

The numbers in parentheses represent the fighter’s ranking from last month.


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Heavyweight
  1. Rico Verhoeven (1)
  2. Daniel Ghita (2)
  3. Errol Zimmerman (3)
  4. Benjamin Adegbuyi (4)
  5. Hesdy Gerges (5)
  6. Peter Aerts (6)
  7. Anderson Silva (7)
  8. Zabit Samedov (8)
  9. Mirko Filipović (9)
  10. Ben Edwards (10)

Both No. 8-ranked Zabit Samedov and No. 9-ranked Mirko Filipović competed in Japan this month, but Filipović was in MMA action. Samedov, meanwhile, needed an extension round to get past Makoto Uehara at Blade 1 in Tokyo.

Light Heavyweight
  1. Gokhan Saki (1)
  2. Tyrone Spong (2)
  3. Saulo Cavalari (3)
  4. Nathan Corbett (4)
  5. Artem Vakhitov (5)
  6. Danyo Ilunga (6)
  7. Igor Jurković (7)
  8. Mourad Bouzidi (8)
  9. Andrei Stoica (9)
  10. Zack Mwekassa (10)

No fighters in the top 10 were in action this month, so the rankings remain unchanged.

Middleweight
  1. Artem Levin (1)
  2. Joe Schilling (2)
  3. Simon Marcus (3)
  4. Alex Pereira (4)
  5. Filip Verlinden (5)
  6. Jason Wilnis (6)
  7. Sahak Parparyan (7)
  8. Melvin Manhoef (8)
  9. Wayne Barrett (9)
  10. Israel Adesanya (10)

No. 4-ranked Alex Pereira was in action this month, scoring a TKO win over Ivan Galaz at WGP 24 in São Paulo, Brazil.

Welterweight
  1. Nieky Holzken (1)
  2. Joseph Valtellini (2)
  3. Marc de Bonte (3)
  4. Karapet Karapetyan (4)
  5. Artur Kyshenko (5)
  6. Raymond Daniels (6)
  7. Karim Ghajji (8)
  8. Alexander Stetsurenko (7)
  9. L’houcine Ouzgni (9)
  10. Jonatan Oliveira (10)

The welterweight division was very busy in the month of December. No. 1-ranked Nieky Holzken needed less than a minute to dispatch of Turkish opponent Yusuf Karakaya at One Shot World Series. Ukrainian Artur Kyshenko held onto the fifth spot with a decision win over Andrei Leuştean in Moldova. Finally, France’s Karim Ghaji bested Alexander Stetsurenko to take the No. 7-ranking.

Lightweight
  1. Robin van Roosmalen (1)
  2. Davit Kiria (2)
  3. Andy Ristie (3)
  4. Giorgio Petrosyan (4)
  5. Murthel Groenhart (5)
  6. Andy Souwer (6)
  7. Buakaw Banchamek (7)
  8. Dzhabar Askerov (8)
  9. Yodsanklai Fairtex (10)
  10. Ky Hollenbeck (9)

Buakaw Banchamek maintained his spot in the rankings with a decision win over Dmytro Konstantynov at Top King World Series 3 in Hong Kong. His fellow Thai, Yodsanklai Fairtex, moved into the No. 9 spot with a first-round TKO win over Christophe Pruvost at Thai Fight Final 2014.

Featherweight
  1. Mosab Amrani (1)
  2. Masaaki Noiri (5)
  3. Kaew Fairtex (2)
  4. Yuta Kubo (3)
  5. Gabriel Varga (4)
  6. Sagetdao Petpayathai (6)
  7. Shane Oblonsky (7)
  8. Liam Harrison (8)
  9. Yodkhunpon Sitmonchai (9)
  10. Kevin Ross (10)

The biggest move in the featherweight division came from 21-year-old Japanese fighter Masaaki Noiri, who demolished countryman Ogata Atsushi at Krush 48. The win was enough to vault Noiri into the No. 2 spot in our rankings.

Pound-For-Pound
  1. Artem Levin (1)
  2. Gokhan Saki (2)
  3. Rico Verhoeven (3)
  4. Nieky Holzken (4)
  5. Robin van Roosmalen (5)
  6. Davit Kiria (6)
  7. Andy Ristie (7)
  8. Giorgio Petrosyan (8)
  9. Joseph Valtellini (9)
  10. Daniel Ghita (10)

Only the No. 4-ranked Holzken was in action this month and his dominant performance did nothing to change his place as one of the pound-for-pound best in the world.


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