Predicting the Top 10 Pound-for-Pound Fighters at the End of 2013

It’s one of the subtle charms of boxing.

Unlike sports whose top performers and teams are determined via the predictable structure of tournament or playoff blueprints, figuring out who’s the best in the ring is far more often done via the residue of discussions held across dueling bar stools or from dueling laptops.

Part of it is thanks to promotional and sanctioning nonsense that makes matches of similarly-sized champions as rare as a Mark Sanchez touchdown drive.

Then there’s the physical reality that a clash of the world’s best at featherweight and heavyweight would necessitate the smaller man facing a foe who’s literally twice his size.

Not quite as easy as assembling an NCAA bracket, huh?

Those challenges notwithstanding, we’ve chosen to forge ahead with a multi-layered forecast that not only determines who the world’s top 10 pound-for-pound fighters are at the moment—but determines what that list will look like just less than six months from now, when 2013 becomes 2014.

Imagine it's New Year's Eve, then click through to get the perspective from our crystal ball.

10. Saul "Canelo" Alvarez

It’s not often that a fighter takes a loss—in this case his first after 43 fights as an unbeaten—and maintains a spot among the elites.

But it’s also not that often that a fighter goes 12 rounds with the consensus best in the world and provides a few moments where the verdict is actually in doubt, as the 23-year-old Canelo did on Sept. 14 while occasionally making a 36-year-old Floyd Mayweather Jr. look his age.

Going forward, it’s likely Alvarez makes a step-by-step climb into the single digits.

9. Abner Mares

Born in Mexico and now residing in Southern California, the now 28-year-old Mares capped a successful transition year in August with a one-sided beating of ex-champ Jhonny Gonzalez in the first defense of the featherweight belt he won three months earlier from pal Daniel Ponce De Leon.

It’s the third weight class conquering for the former 118- and 122-pound champion, and it’s got the masses clamoring for a showdown with another former featherweight claimant: Top Rank star Mikey Garcia.

8. Manny Pacquiao

Just when you though the multi-division Filipino’s stay at the top had been ended by last winter’s brutal KO to Juan Manuel Marquez, he re-merged with a classic “PacMan” effort in November’s beatdown of Brandon Rios in China.

Faced with a strong foe that was ready to battle head on, Pacquiao used speed and footwork to befuddle the younger man early before reverting to all-out aggression that led to a stoppage in round nine.

And just that quickly, calls for a Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight were revived.

7. Mikey Garcia

At the end of 2012, the California-born Top Rank product was a featherweight prospect from whom much was anticipated.

By the end of 2013, Garcia had transformed that promise into production—dropping sturdy champion Orlando Salido four times en route to an eighth-round victory in January, then whipping the man from whom Salido had won the title, Juan Manuel Lopez, in four one-sided rounds in June.

Those victories paved the way for big-event discussion for the still-unbeaten pro.

6. Carl Froch

The popular and exciting Englishman was uncharacteristically inactive in 2013—fighting just one time after a series of fights since 2009 had elevated him to the super middleweight penthouse.

Still, his one win did net him revenge over former conqueror Mikkel Kessler, leaving fellow 168-pound elitist Andre Ward as the only opponent against whom he’s never scored a win.

That fight is a tasty entrée for 2014, though it may yet be preceded by a risky in-between match with countryman George Groves.

5. Adrien Broner

The heir apparent to Floyd Mayweather Jr. as the sport’s most reviled persona, Broner nonetheless accomplished a lot in the year in which he celebrated his 24th birthday.

He began with a destruction of Welshman Gavin Rees in defense of his WBC lightweight title in February, then sacrificed that belt and made a two-division leap to wrest the WBA welterweight strap from Paulie Malignaggi in a bout that wasn’t nearly as close as scores indicated.

The sky’s the limit going forward for “The Problem.”

4. Andre Ward

Absence has certainly made the hearts of boxing experts grow fonder when it comes to the unbeaten American super middleweight, who’s not been active since September 2012 thanks to a shoulder injury.

He’s nonetheless kept himself relevant with a gig as an analyst on HBO’s fight broadcasts, which made for interesting chemistry when the network covered rival Carl Froch’s June win over Mikkel Kessler.

A win in a Froch rematch could be the springboard to No. 1 for the former Olympic gold medalist.

3. Wladimir Klitschko

He’d won 18 straight fights, picked up four of the five most significant heavyweight title belts and defended the first two of those championships no fewer than 14 times—ending 11 defenses inside the scheduled distance.

Yet, the Ph.D.-toting Ukrainian didn’t get the full faith and credit of the boxing cognoscenti until a devastating seventh-round blitz of previously unbeaten Russian Alexander Povetkin in October in Moscow.

Barring a huge upset, it looks like a reign for life for “Dr. Steelhammer.”

2. Juan Manuel Marquez

OK, a show of hands:

If on Dec. 7, 2012—the day before he met Manny Pacquiao for the fourth time—you would have suggested the 20-year Mexican pro would end the following year among the top two pound-for-pound fighters in the world, go ahead and bask in your own glow.

As for the rest of us, we’ll be stunned not only that Marquez laid his nemesis out with a single punch, but that he went on to school Timothy Bradley over 12 rounds while picking up a 147-pound title eight months later.    

1. Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Leonard Ellerbe might want to remind this guy that he’s getting close to birthday No. 37, not 27.

Instead of winding down en route to retirement, boxing’s top man spent 2013 breaking new ground—first signing a mega-deal with Showtime, then winning the first two fights on that contract with a 12-round rout of Robert Guerrero and a slightly closer, but more impressive, nod over 23-year-old Canelo Alvarez.

It was the first two-fight year for “Money” since 2007, and he promises more of the same in 2014.