Yahoo! Top 10 Fighters of the Year

The race for the 2008 Fighter of the Year award is not much of a race at all. It’s about as competitive as the 1973 Belmont, when the great Secretariat won by 31 lengths, or the 1940 NFL championship game, when the Chicago Bears routed theWashington Redskins 73-0.

Picking the winner this year is as easy as falling asleep on the couch after a large holiday meal. It doesn’t take much effort.

But there were plenty of good individual performances in 2008, so we’ll count them down from No. 10 to No. 1, when we pick our Yahoo! Sports Fighter of the Year.-By Kevin Iole, Yahoo! Sports

Here are the top 10 fighters of 2008 courtesy of Yahoo! Sports!

10. David Haye, heavyweight contender (22-1, 21 KOs)

9. Vic Darchinyan, IBF-WBA-WBC flyweight champion (31-1-1, 25 KOs)

8. Arthur Abraham, IBF middleweight champion (28-0, 23 KOs)

7. Chad Dawson, IBF light heavyweight champion (27-0, 17 KOs)

6. Bernard Hopkins, light heavyweight contender (49-5-1, 32 KOs)


5. Joe Calzaghe, Ring Magazine light heavyweight champion (46-0, 32 KOs)

4. Juan Manuel Lopez, WBO super bantamweight champion (24-0, 22 KOs)

3. Juan Manuel Marquez, Ring Magazine lightweight champion (49-4-1, 36 KOs)

2. Antonio Margarito, WBA welterweight champion (37-5, 27 KOs)

1. Manny Pacquiao, WBC lightweight champion (48-3-2, 36 KOs)