Roberto Durán Samaniego is a Panamanian former professional boxer who competed from 1968 to 2001. He held world championships in four weight classes: lightweight, welterweight, light middleweight and middleweight, as well as reigns as the undisputed and lineal lightweight champion, and the lineal welterweight champion. He is also the second boxer to have competed over a span of five decades, the first being Jack Johnson. Durán was known as a versatile, technical brawler and pressure fighter, which earned him the nickname of "Mano de Piedra" for his formidable punching power and excellent defense.
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 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.
Thomas Hearns is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1977 to 2006. Nicknamed the "Motor City Cobra", and more famously "The Hitman", Hearns's tall, slender build and oversized arms and shoulders allowed him to move up over fifty pounds in his career and become the first boxer in history to win world titles in five weight divisions: welterweight, light middleweight, middleweight, super middleweight and light heavyweight.
John Mugabi is a Ugandan former professional boxer who competed from 1980 to 1991, and 1996 to 1999. He held the WBC super-welterweight title from 1989 to 1990, and challenged twice for world titles at middleweight, including the undisputed championship.
Boxing in the 1980s was filled with important fights, events and personalities that shaped the sport. Boxing in the 1980s was shaped by many different situations, such as the continuous corporate battles between the different world sanctioning organizations, the void left by Muhammad Ali as the sport's ambassador and consequent search for a new boxing hero, the continuous presence of Don King as the sport's most famous promoter, the surge of rival promoters as Bob Arum, Butch Lewis and Murad Muhammad, and major rule changes. In 1986, Mike Tyson emerged as a fresh new face in the heavyweight division, which had seen a decline in champion quality level after Ali's retirement and, later on, after longtime WBC ruler Larry Holmes' prime. In addition, the IBF and WBO began operating.
Light middleweight, also known as junior middleweight or super welterweight, is a weight class in combat sports.
In professional boxing, the undisputed champion of a weight class is the boxer who holds world titles from all of the major sanctioning organisations simultaneously. There are currently four major sanctioning bodies: WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO. There were many undisputed champions before the number of sanctioning bodies increased to four in 2007, but there have only been 13 boxers to hold all four titles simultaneously. As of June 2022, Canelo Álvarez, Jermell Charlo and Devin Haney are undisputed champions in the super middleweight, light middleweight and lightweight divisions respectively.
Curtis Bush is an American world champion kickboxer who competed in the welterweight, super-welterweight, light-middleweight and middleweight divisions. A tall Southpaw possessing dangerous spinning back kicks and spinning back fists, Bush competed entirely under full contact rules and was a two-time Virginia state champion as an amateur before turning professional in 1983. After knocking out Robert Visitacion to become the North American welterweight champion in 1987, he went on to win five world titles in four weight classes and retired from competition in 1999.
Dingaan Bongane Thobela, is a South African former professional boxer who competed between 1990 and 2006. He is a world champion in two weight classes, having held the WBO lightweight title from 1990 to 1992, the WBA lightweight in 1993, and the WBC super-middleweight title in 2000.
In certain sports, when a sportsman wins three crowns, titles, medals, belts or other distinctions, the athlete is called a triple champion.
A grand slam champion, also known as a quadruple champion, occurs in different sports when a competitor wins four crowns, titles, medals, belts or another distinction. The definition varies depending on the sport.
In different sports when a sportsman wins seven crowns, titles, medals, belts or another distinctions is called a Septuple Champion.
An octuple champion is a boxer who has won major world titles in eight different weight classes. Manny Pacquiao is the only boxer in history to have won twelve major world titles in eight different weight divisions.
The history of boxing in the Philippines is the history of boxing and the evolution and progress of the sport in the Philippines. In the Philippines, boxing is one of its most popular sports, together with basketball, due to the many accolades it has brought to the country, having produced 45 major world champions, one of the most in the world. Despite not having won a gold medal in boxing, the Philippines has had multiple Olympic standouts, with 8 out of its 12 total Olympic medals coming from boxing, along with some of the greatest fighters in the history of the sport. Filipino greats like Pancho Villa, Flash Elorde and Ceferino Garcia are members of the two highly respected boxing hall of fames - International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF) and World Boxing Hall of Fame (WBHF) thus, giving the Philippines the most number of boxing hall of fame members out of Asia.