2013 was a very good year for boxing by and large, and the elite operators of the last 12 months really had a chance to show their class. The mythical but always interesting/debatable/essential pound-for-pound rankings saw some old stars remain where they were, whilst some new stars burst into the charts.
Guys like Mayweather, Klitschko and Ward continued to enjoy lofty positions P-4-P, while gifted boxers Guillermo Rigondeaux, Mikey Garcia and Danny Garcia proved their worth in bringing some new blood into the rankings of many boxing publications.
That said, this writer now gives his picks for the final pound-for-pound top-15 of 2013:
1: Floyd Mayweather – welterweight/light-middleweight. (the downside on Mayweather: continues to attack and abuse the one fighter he fears and will not fight in Manny Pacquiao)
2: Andre Ward – super-middleweight. (the downside on Ward: continues to fail to grasp how he is not the draw he thinks he is and refuses to come to the UK to rematch Carl Froch)
3: Timothy Bradley – welterweight. (the downside on Bradley: failed to concede how Manny Pacquiao defeated him last year, with everyone else who saw the fight feeling he did not deserve the decision that went his way)
4: Wladimir Klitschko – heavyweight. (the downside on Klitschko: will not take anything approaching a chance in any fight and comes close to using illegal holding tactics in fights – see his hug-a-thon with Alexander Povetkin)
5: Juan Manuel Marquez – welterweight. (the downside on Marquez: always cries robbery when beaten on points)
6: Manny Pacquiao – welterweight. (the downside on Pacquiao: played his part in holding up the Mayweather fight, although seems to genuinely want it now)
7: Sergio Martinez – middleweight. (the downside on Martinez: won’t fight Gennady Golovkin – or maybe he will agree to face GGG and silence the dumb critics!)
8: Guillermo Rigondeaux – super-bantamweight. (the downside on Rigondeaux: is as boring as can be, knows it, yet doesn’t seem to give a hoot)
9: Bernard Hopkins – light-heavyweight. (the downside on Hopkins: also has a style that can turn off a number of fans)
10: Carl Froch – super-middleweight. (the downside on Froch: won’t give George Groves the rematch he deserves; even if Groves’ whining is becoming annoying now)
11 Gennady Golovkin – middleweight. (the downside on Golovkin: in all honesty, cannot think of a bad thing to say about this good boy!)
12: Danny Garcia – light-welterweight. (the downside on Garcia: ditto, although his dad/trainer Angel has the ability to annoy and offend)
13: Adonis Stevenson – light-heavyweight. (the downside on Stevenson: doesn’t appear to want any part of Sergey Kovalev, despite this match-up being a fight the entire boxing world craves)
14: Saul Alvarez – light-middleweight. (the downside on Alvarez: promised so much against Mayweather and delivered not very much at all)
15: Mikey Garcia – super-featherweight. (the downside on Garcia: some harsh critics say Garcia quit against Orlando Salido when his nose was broken)
Bubbling under: Marcos Maidana, Sergey Kovalev, Shawn Porter, Marco Huck