The Pound-for-Pound Top Fifty

One of the easiest ways to get into a debate on boxing is to try and rank the sport’s top practitioners on a pound-for-pound basis. Everyone’s got an opinion and there’s no way to definitely determine who’s right and who’s wrong. Sure Wladimir Klitschko would defeat Manny Pacquiao if they fought each other -- Klitschko outweighs Pac Man by 100 pounds! But if - and this is the big if – Klitschko and Pacquiao were in the same weight class and were to match their skills against one another in the ring, which fighter would emerge victorious?

Every boxing enthusiast has seen pound-for-pound rankings in various magazines, on the Net and perhaps even on TV. Most of these lists include only ten fighters. Occasionally, you’ll see a pound-for-pound top twenty. So why stop at twenty? In order to provide even more fodder for conversation and debate, here is a pound-for-pound ranking of the top fifty fighters in the world today.

1. Floyd Mayweather Jr. (147)
2. Manny Pacquiao (147)
3. Sergio Martinez (160)
4. Nonito Donaire (118)
5. Juan Manuel Marquez (135)
6. Andre Ward (168)
7. Timothy Bradley (140)
8. Wladimir Klitschko (Heavy)
9. Yuriorkis Gamboa (126)
10. Miguel Cotto (154)
11. Lucian Bute (168)
12. Vitali Klitschko (Heavy)
13. Chris John (126)
14. Orlando Salido (126)
15. Amir Khan (140)
16. Juan Manuel Lopez (126)
17. Bernard Hopkins (175)
18. Abner Mares (118)
19. Brandon Rios (135)
20. Chad Dawson (175)
21. Victor Ortiz (147)
22. Carl Froch (168)
23. Andre Berto (147)
24. Devon Alexander (140)
25. Joseph Agbeko (118)
26. Pongsaklek Wonjongkam (112)
27. Humberto Soto (140)
28. Robert Guerrero (135)
29. Shane Mosley (147)
30. Ricky Burns (135)
31. Mikkel Kessler (168)
32. Marcos Maidana (140)
33. Tavoris Cloud (175)
34. Toshiaki Nishioka (122)
35. Yonnhy Perez (118)
36. Jorge Arce (118)
37. Marco Huck (200)
38. Saul Alvarez (154)
39. Lamont Peterson (140)
40. Sergei Dzindziruk (154)
41. Jean Pascal (175)
42. Adrien Broner (130)
43. Anselmo Moreno (118)
44. Paul Williams (154)
45. Brian Viloria (112)
46. Felix Sturm (160)
47. Omar Narvaez (115)
48. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (160)
49. Hugo Cazares (115)
50. Erislandy Lara (154)

Dropping off the list in recent months: Tomasz Adamek (Heavy), Giovani Segura (112), Fernando Montiel (118), Vic Darchinyan (118), Glen Johnson (168), Kelly Pavlik (168), Arthur Abraham (168), Steve Cunningham (200), David Haye (Heavy), Andre Dirrell (168), Antonio Margarito (154), Marco Antonio Barrera (135).

No doubt your top fifty would look much different. Maybe entirely different! Share your thoughts on the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world today on the boxing bulletin board.