The World Boxing Council (WBC) is an international professional boxing organization. It is among the four major organizations which sanction professional boxing bouts, alongside the World Boxing Association (WBA), International Boxing Federation (IBF) and World Boxing Organization (WBO).
The World Boxing Association (WBA), formerly known as the National Boxing Association (NBA), is the oldest and one of four major organizations which sanction professional boxing bouts, alongside the World Boxing Council (WBC), International Boxing Federation (IBF) and World Boxing Organization (WBO). The WBA awards its world championship title at the professional level. Founded in the United States in 1921 by 13 state representatives as the NBA, in 1962 it changed its name in recognition of boxing's growing popularity worldwide and began to gain other nations as members.
The World Boxing Organization (WBO) is an organization which sanctions professional boxing bouts. It is recognized by the International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF) as one of the four major world championship groups, alongside the World Boxing Association (WBA), World Boxing Council (WBC), and International Boxing Federation (IBF). The WBO's headquarters are located in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Antonio Deon Tarver is an American former professional boxer and boxing commentator. In boxing he competed from 1997 to 2015, and held multiple light heavyweight world championships, including the WBA (Unified), WBC, IBF and Ring magazine titles, as well as the IBO light heavyweight and cruiserweight titles.
Jermain Taylor is an American former professional boxer who competed from 2001 to 2014. He remains the most recent undisputed middleweight champion, having won the WBA (Undisputed), WBC, IBF, WBO, and The Ring middleweight titles in 2005 by beating Bernard Hopkins, and in doing so ending Hopkins' ten-year reign as middleweight champion. This made Taylor the first, and to date, only male boxer in history to claim each title from all four major boxing sanctioning organizations in a single fight. He once again defeated Hopkins six months later, making him the only fighter to have defeated Hopkins twice. He retired as a world champion in the months that followed his capture of the IBF middleweight title for a second time, after making a substantial recovery from a brain injury sustained earlier in his career.
Stephen Collins is an Irish former professional boxer who competed from 1986 to 1997. Known as the Celtic Warrior, Collins is the most successful male Irish boxer in recent professional boxing history, having held the WBO middleweight and super-middleweight titles simultaneously and never losing a fight as champion.
Mikkel Kessler is a Danish former professional boxer who competed from 1998 to 2013. He held multiple super-middleweight world championships, including the World Boxing Association (WBA) title three times between 2004 and 2013, and the WBC title twice between 2006 and 2010.
In boxing, the undisputed champion of a weight class is the boxer who simultaneously holds world titles from all major organizations recognized by each other and the International Boxing Hall of Fame. There are currently four major sanctioning bodies: WBA, WBC, WBO, and IBF. There were many undisputed champions before the number of major sanctioning bodies recognizing each other increased to four in 2007, but there have been only 19 boxers to hold all four titles simultaneously.
Paul Williams is an American former professional boxer who competed from 2000 to 2012. He held the WBO welterweight title twice between 2007 and 2008, the WBO interim junior middleweight title in 2008, and challenged once for the unified middleweight title in 2010. Nicknamed "The Punisher", and standing at a height of 6 feet 2 inches, Williams was unusually tall for the three divisions in which he competed. His career was cut short in 2012 after a motorcycle accident left him paralyzed from the waist down.
As in the 1980s, the 1990s in boxing's popularity focused on all divisions. When 1980s legends Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, as well as others retired, newer superstars filled the void: Pernell Whitaker, Julio César Chávez, in the early 1990s, Oscar De La Hoya, Félix Trinidad, Roy Jones Jr. and Floyd Mayweather Jr. in the mid to late 1990s.
Verno Jeremias Phillips is a Belizean former professional boxer who competed from 1988 to 2008. He is a three-time junior middleweight world champion, having held the WBO title from 1993 to 1995, and the IBF title twice in 2004 and 2008.
Thulani Malinga is a South African former professional boxer who competed from 1981 to 2000, and held the WBC super-middleweight title twice between 1996 and 1998.
Graciano Rocchigiani was a German professional boxer who competed from 1983 to 2003. He held world championships in two weight classes, including the IBF super-middleweight title from 1988 to 1989, and the WBC light-heavyweight title in 1998. At regional level he held the European light-heavyweight title from 1991 to 1992. He was the younger brother of former cruiserweight world champion of boxing, Ralf Rocchigiani.
Steve Little was an American former professional boxer who competed from 1983 to 1998, having held the WBA super middleweight champion in 1994. He is best known for his victories over Pipino Cuevas and Michael Nunn.
Gianfranco Rosi retired Italian boxer who was a two-time world champion in the light-middleweight division.
Ryan Rhodes is a British former professional boxer who competed from 1995 to 2012. He held the British super welterweight title twice, from 1996 to 1997 and in 2008, and the EBU European super welterweight title from 2009 to 2010. Additionally he challenged for the WBO middleweight title in 1997, and the WBC super welterweight title in 2011.
Boxing in the 2010s includes notable events about boxing which occurred between 2010 and 2019. The decade saw high intensity action in the welterweight division. The match between veterans Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao broke PPV records. The broadcast of the fight in the Philippines was watched by nearly half the country's households. Mayweather retired at a record 50-0-0 while Pacquiao became the first eight division champion. The middleweight division saw immense action in the later years of the decade. After a draw in 2017, Canelo Alvarez ended Gennady Golovkin's long reign in 2018. The heavyweight division was dominated by Klitschko brothers before Wladimir's loss to Tyson Fury in 2015. Other talents that emerged were Anthony Joshua, Deontay Wilder and undisputed cruiserweight champion Oleksander Usyk.
Boxing in the 2020s is a list of notable fights and events in boxing during the decade from the year 2020 to 2029.
