Ryan Garcia Rises to No. 2 in The Ring Welterweight Rankings
The Ring moved Ryan Garcia to No. 2 in its latest welterweight rankings after the WBC champion stopped Conor Benn in two rounds on September 12. The update puts him behind only Devin Haney and ahead of a 147-pound list that still has no Ring champion.
Garcia entered the Benn fight as a mid-tier name on The Ring sheet and left it as the second-rated welterweight in the magazine’s eyes. The graphic shows an upward arrow next to his name and another next to Teófimo López, who climbed to No. 3. Jack Catterall, Brian Norman Jr., and Eimantas Stanionis each dropped a place.
Haney stays at No. 1. The former undisputed lightweight champion won the WBO welterweight title from Norman in November 2025 and remains unbeaten at 33-0. The Ring belt at 147 is vacant after Jaron Ennis moved to junior middleweight last year, so Haney sits at the top of a division without a magazine champion attached to him.
Garcia is 26-2 with 21 knockouts after the Benn defense. He took the WBC title from Mario Barrios in February and made the first defense in Las Vegas under the Zuffa Boxing banner. The stoppage was the kind of result The Ring usually rewards, and the magazine did that here by jumping him past three men who had been listed above him through the summer.
Lopez’s rise to No. 3 is the other notable climb. The former lightweight and junior-welterweight champion has been campaigning at 147 and was in the ring area after Garcia-Benn. The ranking does not book a fight. It does put the two most marketable American names in the division next to each other on the same published list.
Catterall falls to No. 4 after a long run near the top that included a WBA regular-title win over Shakhram Giyasov. Norman slips to No. 5 following the Haney loss that cost him the WBO belt. Stanionis drops to No. 6. None of those three fought on the Garcia-Benn card. The movement is the ranking panel reacting to Garcia’s result, not to a new loss on their records.
Rohan Polanco holds at No. 7. Raul Curiel stays at No. 8. Alexis Rocha remains No. 9. Rolando Romero is back in the 10th spot after earlier inactivity had pushed him off the sheet. The bottom half of the list is largely unchanged, which is how The Ring usually treats a week that only one ranked man actually fought.
The ranking matters because it is the magazine’s public argument about who belongs in the biggest 147-pound fights. Garcia already holds a major belt. Haney holds another. Lopez is the name promoters keep circling. A Ring No. 2 rating does not force a unification, but it makes it harder to pretend Garcia is still a novelty act at the weight.
Garcia has spent the days since Benn talking about other opponents, including a retired Terence Crawford and a possible return with Gervonta Davis. The Ring list is separate from those callouts. It is the closest thing boxing has to a consensus board, and this version says the WBC champion is now the second-best welterweight it is willing to rank.
What comes next is a booking problem more than a ratings problem. Haney has been slow to commit to a date. Lopez has already made his interest in Garcia obvious. Davis is arguing about a 144-pound catchweight instead of 147. None of that is settled. The only thing The Ring settled this week is the order on the page.
Garcia’s place on that page will last only until the next result the panel considers big enough to move. For now the Ryan Garcia Ring rankings story is simple. He beat Benn in two rounds, kept the green belt, and The Ring moved him to No. 2 at 147 pounds.