The Greatest Boxers of All Time

A short history of Boxing

Fist fighting is ancient, and boxing was added to the Olympic Games of Greece in 688 BC. The modern sport grew out of English bare-knuckle prizefighting, first documented in 1681. In 1743 champion Jack Broughton wrote its first rules: a fighter who went down and could not continue after 30 seconds had lost, and hitting a downed man or grabbing below the waist was banned. The later London Prize Ring Rules outlawed butting, gouging, kicking and hitting a man while he was down.

The decisive change came with the Marquess of Queensberry Rules, drafted by Welsh sportsman John Graham Chambers in 1865 and published in 1867. They required gloves, three-minute rounds with a minute of rest and a 10-second count after a knockdown. In 1892 James J. Corbett beat John L. Sullivan in New Orleans to become the first world heavyweight champion under those rules, and in 1908 Jack Johnson took the title from Canada's Tommy Burns in Sydney, becoming the first Black world heavyweight champion.

The 20th century made boxing a mass-media sport. Fights were broadcast on radio from 1920, Joe Louis held the heavyweight title from 1937 to 1949, and Muhammad Ali dominated the 1960s and 1970s. The World Boxing Council was founded in Mexico City in 1963, and after the death of Kim Duk-koo in the early 1980s the sanctioning bodies cut championship fights from 15 rounds to 12. Today the WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO all crown world champions.

Amateur boxing has been on the modern Olympic program since 1904, missing only Stockholm 1912, when Swedish law banned it. Women's events were added in 2012, and professionals became eligible in 2016. After years of governance problems, the International Olympic Committee withdrew recognition from the International Boxing Association in 2023. In 2025 it voted to keep boxing for Los Angeles 2028, run by the new federation World Boxing, with seven weight classes each for men and women.

• ✦Win by knockout (failing to beat the referee's count of 10), technical knockout, disqualification or the judges' decision.
• ✦Professional rounds last three minutes with a minute's rest; world title fights are scheduled for 12 rounds.
• ✦Up to three ringside judges score the bout; the fighter ahead on the cards wins, and draws are possible.
• ✦Punch only with the knuckles of a closed glove; no blows below the belt, to the back of the head or to the kidneys.
• ✦Holding, pushing, tripping, biting and headbutting are fouls that can bring warnings, point deductions or disqualification.
• ✦Olympic bouts are three three-minute rounds on the 10-point must system; men have boxed without headgear since 2016.