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.
John Ruiz is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1992 to 2010, and held the WBA heavyweight title twice between 2001 and 2005. Ruiz is of Puerto Rican descent, and is the first Latino boxer to win a world heavyweight title.
Acelino "Popó" Freitas is a Brazilian politician and a former professional boxer who competed between 1995 and 2017. He is a world champion in two weight classes, having held the WBO super featherweight title from 1999 to 2004, the WBA (Unified) super featherweight title from 2002 to 2004, and the WBO lightweight title twice between 2004 and 2007. After retiring from boxing, Freitas went into politics, and was elected as a legislator for the state of Bahia, from 2011 to 2014. His nickname, Popó, was given to him by his mother, after the sound that babies make while drinking milk.
Tommy Morrison was an American professional boxer and mixed martial artist who competed from 1988 to 2009. Best known for his left hook and formidable punching power, Morrison won the WBO heavyweight title in 1993 with a unanimous decision victory over George Foreman. He lost the title in his second defense to Michael Bentt that same year. Morrison's other boxing highlights include his fight with Ray Mercer in 1991, and with Donovan Ruddock in 1995. Morrison is also known for his acting career, having starred alongside Sylvester Stallone in the 1990 film Rocky V as Tommy Gunn. He retired from boxing in 1996 after testing positive for HIV.
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.
Hasim Sharif Rahman is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1994 to 2014. He is a two-time world heavyweight champion, having held the unified WBC, IBF, IBO and lineal titles in 2001; and the WBC title again from 2005 to 2006. He was ranked as a top 10 heavyweight by BoxRec from 2000 to 2007, and reached his highest ranking of world No.6 in 2000.
Wladimir Klitschko is a Ukrainian former professional boxer who competed from 1996 to 2017. He held the world heavyweight championship twice, including the unified WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, IBO, and Ring magazine titles. A strategic and intelligent boxer, Klitschko is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweight champions of all time. He was known for his exceptional knockout power, using a strong jab, straight right hand and left hook, quick hand speed, great physical strength which he employed when clinching opponents, and his athletic footwork and mobility, unusual for boxers of his size.
Igor Yaroslavovych Vovchanchyn is a retired Ukrainian mixed martial artist and kickboxer, who competed in early no holds barred MMA contests. After making his professional MMA debut in 1995, he won nine openweight mixed martial arts tournaments, 3 superfights, holds the second longest unbeaten streak in MMA and is the second most successful MMA fighter ever by number of wins achieved by way of knockout. Vovchanchyn has an MMA tournament named after him, the Igor Vovchanchyn Cup.
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, a fight against Lennox Lewis in 1992, and a fight with Tommy Morrison in 1995. Ruddock was also known for his exceptionally heavy punching; some of the best examples of his left hand and overall power was his knockouts of former WBA heavyweight champions James Smith in 1989, Michael Dokes in 1990, and Greg Page in 1992. 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 -- it also happened to be his major downside throughout his career. Being a left-handed puncher fighting out of the orthodox stance, he didn't throw a single right hand during most knockout flurries.
In individual combat sports, a tomato can, or simply can, is a fighter with comparatively poor or diminished skills who may be considered an easy opponent to defeat, or a "guaranteed win." Fights with tomato cans can be arranged to inflate the win total of a professional fighter. Similarly, a fighter whose record consists of wins over easy opponents is referred to as a "can crusher". The phrase originates in the childhood pastime of kicking a can down the street—a boxer is advancing his career with minimal effort by defeating a tomato can and notching a win. "Tomato" refers to blood: "knock a tomato can over, and red stuff spills out."
Alexander "Sasha" Ustinov is a Russian professional boxer, former kickboxer and mixed martial artist. In boxing, he has challenged once for the WBA (Regular) heavyweight title in 2017.
Kubrat Venkov Pulev is a Bulgarian professional boxer. He has challenged once for the IBF and the Ring magazine heavyweight titles in 2014, and once for the unified heavyweight title in 2020. At regional level, he has held multiple heavyweight championships, including the European title twice between 2012 and 2016. As an amateur, he won multiple medals at international tournaments, including gold at the 2008 European Championships and bronze at the 2005 World Championships, all in the super-heavyweight division. He also represented Bulgaria at the 2008 Olympics.
Francesco Pianeta is an Italian former professional boxer who competed from 2005 to 2018. He challenged for the unified WBA (Super), IBF, WBO and The Ring heavyweight championship in 2013, the WBA (Regular) title in 2015, and in his final fight for the Lineal heavyweight championship in 2018. At regional level, he held the European Union heavyweight title from 2008 to 2009.
Timothy Edward Lee Hague was a Canadian mixed martial artist and boxer who competed in the heavyweight division, most recently for Absolute Championship Berkut. He became a professional fighter in 2006, and formerly competed for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, World Series of Fighting and King of the Cage, where he went 11–0 and was the King of the Cage Canada Heavyweight Champion. On June 16, 2017, he suffered a brain hemorrhage after being knocked out in a boxing match against Adam Braidwood in Edmonton, Alberta. He died on June 18, 2017.
Takashi Uchiyama is a Japanese former professional boxer who competed from 2005 to 2016, having held the WBA (Super) super-featherweight title from 2010 to 2016.
Naoya Inoue is a Japanese professional boxer. He has held multiple world championships in four weight classes, and is only the second male boxer in history to become the undisputed champion in two weight classes in the four-belt era. Nicknamed "The Monster", Inoue is known for his exceptional punching power, possessing a knockout-to-win percentage of 88.88%, and 90.90% in world title matches.
Dmitry Yuryevich Bivol is a Russian professional boxer who has held the World Boxing Association (WBA) light heavyweight title since 2017 and the International Boxing Organization (IBO) title since 2023. As an amateur, he won a gold medal at the 2013 World Combat Games in the 81 kg weight category. As of January 2024, Bivol is ranked as the world's sixth best active boxer, pound for pound, by BoxRec, fourth by the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board (TBRB), sixth by The Ring, seventh by the Boxing Writers Association of America and fourth by ESPN. He is also ranked as the second-ranked best light heavyweight by The Ring, ESPN, TBRB and BoxRec.
Anthony Joshua vs Wladimir Klitschko, was a professional boxing match contested on 29 April 2017 at Wembley Stadium in London, England, with Joshua's IBF and the vacant WBA (Super) and IBO heavyweight titles on the line. Joshua won the match via technical knockout (TKO) in the eleventh round with 90,000 fans in attendance. Klitschko announced his retirement from boxing a few months after the fight. The bout was named Fight of the Year by The Ring and the Boxing Writers Association of America.
Israil Madrimov is a professional boxer from Uzbekistan, who has held WBA super welterweight title since March 2024. As an amateur, he won a silver medal in the welterweight division at the 2014 Asian Games and gold in the middleweight division at the 2018 edition.
Davemark Cereno Apolinario is a Filipino professional boxer. He is a former IBO Flyweight champion.
