Boxing is a combat sport 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.
A knockout is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, muay thai, mixed martial arts, karate, some forms of taekwondo and other sports involving striking, as well as fighting-based video games. A full knockout is considered any legal strike or combination thereof that renders an opponent unable to continue fighting.
Michael Gerard Tyson is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1985 to 2005. Nicknamed "Iron Mike" and "Kid Dynamite" in his early career, and later known as "The Baddest Man on the Planet", Tyson is considered one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time. He reigned as the undisputed world heavyweight champion from 1987 to 1990. Tyson won his first 19 professional fights by knockout, 12 of them in the first round. Claiming his first belt at 20 years, four months, and 22 days old, Tyson holds the record as the youngest boxer ever to win a heavyweight title. He was the first heavyweight boxer to simultaneously hold the WBA, WBC and IBF titles, as well as the only heavyweight to unify them in succession. The following year, Tyson became the lineal champion when he knocked out Michael Spinks in 91 seconds of the first round. In 1990, Tyson was knocked out by underdog Buster Douglas in one of the biggest upsets in history, when he was knocked out in the tenth round.
Lennox Claudius Lewis is a former professional boxer who competed from 1989 to 2003. He is a three-time world heavyweight champion, a two-time lineal champion, and remains the last heavyweight to hold the undisputed championship. Holding dual British and Canadian citizenship, Lewis represented Canada as an amateur at the 1988 Summer Olympics, winning a gold medal in the super-heavyweight division after defeating Riddick Bowe in the final.
Joseph William Frazier, nicknamed "Smokin' Joe", was an American professional boxer who competed from 1965 to 1981. He was known for his strength, durability, formidable punching power, and relentless pressure fighting style and was the first boxer to beat Muhammad Ali. Frazier reigned as the undisputed heavyweight champion from 1970 to 1973 and as an amateur won a gold medal at the 1964 Summer Olympics.
Ezzard Mack Charles, known as the Cincinnati Cobra, was an American professional boxer and World Heavyweight Champion. Known for his slick defense and precision, he is often considered the greatest light heavyweight boxer of all time. As of May 2021, BoxRec ranks Charles as the second greatest boxer of all time, pound for pound, behind Floyd Mayweather Jr. Charles defeated numerous Hall of Fame fighters in three different weight classes. Charles retired with a record of 95 wins, 25 losses and 1 draw. He was posthumously inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in the inaugural class of 1990.
Punch-Out!!, originally titled Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, is a boxing sports fighting video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) developed and published by Nintendo in 1987. Years later, worldwide releases of the game were rebranded as Punch-Out!! Part of the Punch-Out!! series, it is an adaptation of both the Punch-Out!! and Super Punch-Out!! arcade games with some variations. The game received critical acclaim and many publications often list it among the greatest video games of all time.
Shadowboxing is a combat sport exercise in which a person throws punches at the air as though there is an opponent. Practised primarily in boxing, it is used mainly to prepare the muscles before the person training engages in stronger physical activity. Muhammad Ali once performed a now famous shadowboxing routine next to Howard Cosell for ABC's Wide World of Sports television cameras. Black Nova Scotian boxer George Dixon is widely credited for developing the technique.
Floyd Joy Mayweather Jr. is an American professional boxing promoter and former professional boxer. He competed between 1996 and 2015, and made a one-fight comeback in 2017. During his career he won fifteen major world championships from super featherweight to light middleweight, including the Ring magazine title in five weight classes, the lineal championship in four weight classes, and retired with an undefeated record. As an amateur, Mayweather won a bronze medal in the featherweight division at the 1996 Olympics, three U.S. Golden Gloves championships, and the U.S. national championship at featherweight.
A hook is a punch in boxing. It is performed by turning the core muscles and back, thereby swinging the arm, which is bent at an angle near or at 90 degrees, in a horizontal arc into the opponent. A hook is usually aimed at the jaw, but it can also be used for body shots, especially to the liver.
Donovan "Razor" Ruddock is a Jamaican-born Canadian former professional boxer who competed from 1982 to 2001, and in 2015. He is known for his two fights against Mike Tyson in 1991, and a fight against Lennox Lewis in 1992. Ruddock was also known for his exceptional heavy punching power: one of the best examples of his left hand power was his knockout of former WBA heavyweight champion Michael Dokes in 1990. His favoured weapon at the ring proved to be a highly versatile half-hook, half-uppercut left-handed punch he called "The Smash," which accounted for the majority of his knockout wins, and also happened to be his major downside during his entire career, as he didn't throw a single right hand during most of knockout flurries, being a left-handed puncher fighting out of the orthodox stance.
Professional boxing, or prizefighting, is regulated, sanctioned boxing. Professional boxing bouts are fought for a purse that is divided between the boxers as determined by contract. Most professional bouts are supervised by a regulatory authority to guarantee the fighters' safety. Most high-profile bouts obtain the endorsement of a sanctioning body, which awards championship belts, establishes rules, and assigns its own judges and referees.
Peek-a-boo is a boxing style which received its common name for the defensive hands position, which are normally placed in front of the boxer's face, like in the baby's game of the same name. The technique is thought to offer extra protection to the face whilst making it easier to jab the opponent's face. The fighter holds their gloves close to their cheeks and pulls their arms tight against their torso. A major proponent of the style was trainer Cus D'Amato, who didn't use the term peek-a-boo and instead referred to it as a "tight defense." The style was criticized by some because it was believed that an efficient attack could not be launched from it.
Throughout the history of gloved boxing styles, techniques and strategies have changed to varying degrees. Ring conditions, promoter demands, teaching techniques, and the influence of successful boxers are some of the reasons styles and strategies have fluctuated.
Mike Tyson vs. Evander Holyfield, billed as Finally, was a professional boxing match fought between Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson for the World Boxing Association heavyweight championship on November 9, 1996 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Paradise, Nevada. The bout was Tyson's first defense of the WBA title that he had won from Bruce Seldon on September 7 of that year.
Bobbing is one of the basic strategies of defensive boxing, executed by slightly moving the head to either side so that the opponent's punches slip by the boxer's head. You use the slip to evade swings, jabs, and straight punches. It can not be used with hooks as they move on the side level. Using slips is valid but risky with uppercuts since the punch is usually too close when the defender can determine the exact line of the punch. To overcome the hooks problem, the defender usually incorporate slipping with ducking
Tyson Luke Fury is a British professional boxer. He is a two-time world heavyweight champion, having held the WBC and The Ring magazine titles since defeating Deontay Wilder in 2020; previously he held the unified WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, IBO, and The Ring titles after defeating Wladimir Klitschko in 2015. With his defeat of Wilder, Fury became the third heavyweight, after Floyd Patterson and Muhammad Ali, to hold The Ring magazine title twice, and is widely considered by media outlets to be the lineal heavyweight champion. As of December 2020, Fury is ranked as the world's best active heavyweight by ESPN, the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board (TBRB), and BoxRec, as well as the second-best active boxer, pound for pound, by BoxRec, sixth by the TBRB, and eighth by ESPN.
Mike Tyson vs. Buster Douglas, billed as Tyson is Back!, was a professional boxing match that occurred at the Tokyo Dome on February 11, 1990. The then-undefeated, undisputed heavyweight champion Tyson lost by knockout to the 42:1 underdog Douglas. The fight is widely regarded as one of the biggest upsets in sports history.
"Irish" Bobby Stewart won the National Golden Gloves Tournament in 1974 as a light heavyweight. He also fought at the US-hosted undercard of The Rumble in the Jungle as a professional boxer, but he will be best remembered as the first trainer for Mike Tyson, who discovered Tyson's tremendous potential and introduced him to boxing.
Muhammad Ali and Cleveland Williams fought each other in a boxing match at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas on November 14, 1966. Ali won the bout through a technical knockout in the third round. Many experts and boxers, including Mike Tyson, regard Ali's performance in this fight to be the finest of his boxing career. This was also the fight in which Ali made famous the move he called the "Ali shuffle".
