4. Bernard Hopkins (48-4-1, 32 KOs)

Light heavyweight champion
Hits: At 43, Hopkins is not closing his career with pointless, easy fights. He's taking on the best opponent he could possibly face in Calzaghe. He deserves credit for that. Misses: Hopkins shamefully continues to unnecessarily bring skin color into his match with Calzaghe by refusing to back off his racist "I'll never lose to a white boy" quote. Disgusting and unacceptable.

5. Juan Manuel Marquez (48-3-1, 35 KOs)

Junior lightweight champion
Hits: If the March 15 rematch between Marquez and Pacquiao is half as good as their great 2004 featherweight championship fight, it will still be a fight of the year candidate. Misses: It could be a rough March for the Marquez family. Juan Manuel could certainly lose to Pacquiao in a fight that comes two weeks after his younger brother, Rafael Marquez, goes into a junior featherweight championship rubber match against Israel Vazquez as the underdog.

6. Miguel Cotto (31-0, 25 KOs)

Welterweight titlist
Hits: While Mayweather sits idle counting his money and looking at a fall rematch with De La Hoya, Cotto is on a mission to clean out the star-studded welterweight division by beating everyone except Mayweather, who doesn't want to fight him at this point. Cotto has already bumped off Zab Judah and Shane Mosley and he blew away future titleholder Carlos Quintana. Next is a fun fight with Alfonso Gomez on April 12. A Cotto win will set the stage for a big July fight against the winner of the Antonio Margarito-Kermit Cintron rematch. While Cotto keeps lining 'em up, Mayweather won't even discuss a Cotto fight.
Misses: Mayweather-Cotto is one of the biggest fights in the sport, but it isn't happening, although it sure isn't Cotto's fault.

7. Winky Wright (51-4-1, 25 KOs)

Middleweight
Hits: Although some have written off Wright since his competitive loss to Hopkins last summer (which, by the way, came well over Wright's natural weight), it's hard to ignore this stat: It was the Winkster's first defeat since a highly controversial decision to an in-his-prime Fernando Vargas all the way back in 1999. Misses: Wright hasn't fought since facing Hopkins in July 2007 and there's nothing in the works for him. The longer he sits out, the more he fades from our consciousness. He'd be best served by taking a smaller fight and getting back in the groove.

8. Israel Vazquez (42-4, 32 KOs)

Junior featherweight champion
Hits: Vazquez's impending trilogy with Rafael Marquez has a chance to go down in history alongside those such as Ali-Frazier, Zale-Graziano, Bowe-Holyfield, Barrera-Morales and Gatti-Ward as among the most exciting ever.
Misses: It's not the fault of the fighters because they deserve the attention, but as much as all of us fight freaks can't wait for the rubber match, it's almost impossible for these guys to gain any serious mainstream attention. That's a shame.

9. Rafael Marquez (37-4, 33 KOs)

Junior featherweight
Hits: Despite taking a lot of punishment and being stopped by Vazquez in the sixth round of the epic rematch in August, Marquez isn't taking a breather. He's going right back in with the guy who stopped him when few would have blamed him for taking another fight.
Misses: If he loses the rubber match to Vazquez, where does he go? Marquez is 32 and it's probably all downhill from there.

10. Kelly Pavlik (32-0, 29 KOs)

Middleweight champion
Hits: Pavlik's knockout victory against Jermain Taylor to win the middleweight championship in September 2007 culminated an exciting and dramatic fight. There's no reason to think the rematch is going to be much different.
Misses: It wasn't the Pavlik camp's idea, but the rematch with Taylor is at 166 pounds and, therefore, not a championship fight. Pavlik didn't have a choice because those were the terms of the rematch clause in the original contract. It's a little disappointing though.