Boxing is a combat sport and a martial art in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined amount of time in a boxing ring.
Joseph Louis Barrow was an American professional boxer who competed from 1934 to 1951. Nicknamed "the Brown Bomber", Louis is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential boxers of all time. He reigned as the world heavyweight champion from 1937 until his temporary retirement in 1949. He was victorious in 25 consecutive title defenses, a record for all weight classes. Louis had the longest single reign as champion of any boxer in history.
Floyd Patterson was an American professional boxer who competed from 1952 to 1972, and twice reigned as the world heavyweight champion between 1956 and 1962. At the age of 21, he became the youngest boxer in history to win the title, and was also the first heavyweight to regain the title after losing it. As an amateur, he won a gold medal in the middleweight division at the 1952 Summer Olympics. He is recognised as one of the best heavyweights of all time.
Robert James Fitzsimmons was a British professional boxer who was the sport's first three-division world champion. He also achieved fame for beating Gentleman Jim Corbett, and he is in The Guinness Book of World Records as the lightest heavyweight champion, weighing just 167 pounds when he won the title. Nicknamed Ruby Robert and The Freckled Wonder, he took pride in his lack of scars and appeared in the ring wearing heavy woollen underwear to conceal the disparity between his trunk and leg-development.
The Marquess of Queensberry Rules, also known as Queensbury Rules, are a code of generally accepted rules in the sport of boxing. Drafted in London in 1865 and published in 1867, they were named so as the 9th Marquess of Queensberry publicly endorsed the code, although they were written by a Welsh sportsman named John Graham Chambers from Llanelli, Carmarthenshire. The code of rules on which modern boxing is based, the Queensberry rules were the first to mandate the use of gloves in boxing.
Bare-knuckle boxing is a full-contact combat sport based on punching without any form of padding on the hands. The sport as it is known today originated in 17th-century England and differs from street fighting as it follows an accepted set of rules.
Jens Ingemar "Ingo" Johansson was a Swedish professional boxer who competed from 1952 to 1963. He held the world heavyweight title from 1959 to 1960, and was the fifth heavyweight champion born outside the United States. Johansson won the title by defeating Floyd Patterson via third-round stoppage, after flooring him seven times in that round. For this achievement, Johansson was awarded the Hickok Belt as top professional athlete of the year—the only non-American in its entire 27-year first run—and was named the Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year and Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year.
James Leslie Darcy was an Australian boxer. He was a middleweight, but held the Australian Heavyweight Championship title at the same time.
The Prizefighter and the Lady is a 1933 pre-Code Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer romance film starring Myrna Loy and the professional boxers Max Baer, Primo Carnera, and Jack Dempsey. The film was adapted for the screen by John Lee Mahin and John Meehan from a story by Frances Marion. Marion was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Story.
Hayes Edward "Big Ed" Sanders was an American heavyweight boxer who won an Olympic gold medal in 1952.
Sailor Steve Costigan is a fictional character created by American writer Robert E. Howard. He is a merchant sailor on the Sea Girl and is also its champion boxer. His only true companion is a bulldog named Mike.
"The TNT Punch" is a Sailor Steve Costigan short story by Robert E. Howard. It was originally published in the January 1931 issue of Action Stories. It has been reprinted under the titles "The Waterfront Law" and "The Waterfront Wallop" since Howard's death. The story was sold to Action Stories publisher Fiction House in August 1930 for $75.
"Texas Fists" is a Sailor Steve Costigan short story by Robert E. Howard. It was originally published in the May 1931 issue of Fight Stories.
"Circus Fists" is a Sailor Steve Costigan short story by Robert E. Howard. It was originally published in the December 1931 issue of Fight Stories.
Yakun or Jakun, nicknamed the Blind, was a Varangian (Viking) leader who is mentioned in the Primary Chronicle and in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. The chronicle tells that he arrived in Kievan Rus' in the year 1024 and fought in the Battle of Listven between the half-brothers Yaroslav I the Wise and Mstislav of Chernigov.
"Fist and Fang" is a Sailor Steve Costigan short story by Robert E. Howard. It was originally published in the May 1930 issue of Fight Stories. Howard earned $100 for the sale of this story. It is also known by the title Cannibal Fists.
"Waterfront Fists" is a Sailor Steve Costigan short story by Robert E. Howard. It was originally published in the September 1930 issue of Fight Stories. Howard earned $90 for the sale of this story which is now in the public domain.
Thomas William Murphy was a New Zealand boxer. An early World Featherweight Champion, he was the first world champion of any weightclass to come from New Zealand. In his early career, he took the New Zealand Lightweight Championship.
George Henry "Kid" Lavigne was boxing's first widely recognized World Lightweight champion, winning the vacant title on June 1, 1896.
Roberto Durán vs. Sugar Ray Leonard II, billed as The Super Fight, and later popularly known as the No Más Fight, was a boxing match which took place on November 25, 1980, at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, United States. It was the second of three bouts between the pair. It gained its name from the moment at the end of the eighth round when Durán turned away from Leonard towards the referee and quit by apparently saying, "No más".
