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Miguel Cotto’s historic middleweight title-winning victory over Sergio Martinez caused a shake-up in THE RING’s 160-pound ratings and the magazine’s pound-for-pound rankings.

Pound For Pound: Sergio Martinez drops from the mythical rankings after being thoroughly beaten by Miguel Cotto. The former middleweight champ will be replaced by former strawweight and junior flyweight titleholder Roman Gonzalez (39-0, 33 knockouts), who currently occupies THE RING’s No. 1 spot at flyweight. Gonzalez enters the pound-for-pound rankings at No. 9, bumping Canelo Alvarez to No. 10 and pushing Carl Froch to No. 8.

Heavyweight: No. 10-rated Tony Thompson (39-4, 26 KOs) dropped a wide decision to unrated Carlos Takam. Thompson will be dropped from the ratings and Mike Perez (20-0-1, 12 KOs), who fought Takam to a draw in January, will enter at No. 10.

Cruiserweight: No. 8-rated Firat Arslan (34-7-2, 21 KOs) rebounded from losing to WBO beltholder Marco Huck by scoring an eight-round decision over journeyman Tamas Bajzath. No change in the rankings.

Light heavyweight: No. 4-rated Juergen Braehmer (44-2, 32 KOs) retained his WBA title by widely out pointing unated Roberto Bolonti. No change.

Middleweight: Cotto moved up from junior middleweight to challenge Martinez in a much anticipated match for THE RING and WBC 160-pound titles. Cotto dominated Martinez, dropping the veteran southpaw three times in the first stanza and once again in the ninth. Martinez retired after nine rounds, awarding Cotto (39-4, 32 KOs) THE RING, WBC and lineal championship. Cotto now moves to THE RING middleweight champion spot with Martinez dropping to No.4. The updated middleweight rankings are as follows:

Champion: Cotto

No. 1: Gennady Golovkin (29-0, 26 KOs)

No. 2: Daniel Geale (30-2, 16 KOs)

No. 3: Peter Quillin (31-0, 22 KOs)

No. 4:  Martinez

No. 5: Sam Soliman (44-11, 18 KOs)

No. 6: Felix Sturm (39-4-2, 18 KOs)

No. 7: Matthew Macklin (30-5, 20 KOs)

No. 8:  Marco Antonio Rubio (59-6-1, 51 KOs)

No. 9: Martin Murray (27-1-1, 12 KOs)

No. 10: Hassan Ndam Njikam (30-1, 18 KOs)

Curtis Stevens (27-4, 20 KOs) will drop from the No. 10 spot.

Junior middleweight: No. 8-rated Willie Nelson (22-1-1, 13 KOs) fought for the first time in almost year, stopping Darryl Cunningham in the first round. With Cotto moving from No. 3 to middleweight champion, everyone will move up one spot and Andy Lee (33-2, 23 KOs), who grabbed the NABF title with an up-from-the-canvas one-punch KO of John Jackson, will enter at No. 10.

Flyweight: No. 5-rated Juan Carlos Reveco (34-1, 18 KOs) outpointed No. 7-rated junior flyweight Felix Alvarado (18-2, 15 KOs). No change.

Chuck Giampa is the Chairman of the Ring Ratings Committee. He can be emailed at [email protected]