Boxing is truly a worldwide sport

By Paul Upham: The US has been the home of boxing for many years when it comes to the money available for fighters, cards held and number of registered boxers and it will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. But glancing through the lists or world champions in each division, it is very pleasing to see so many other countries represented, too.
Looking at the four major sanctioning bodies – the WBC (whose belt is pictured), WBA, IBF and WBO - there are 17 boxers from the USA holding 21 world title belts out of a possible 68 belts from the 17 divisions.

The multiple belt holders from the USA are Hasim Rahman (WBC/IBF heavyweight champion), Roy Jones (WBC/WBA/IBF light-heavyweight champion) and Bernard Hopkins (WBC/IBF middleweight champion).

For the rest of the world, there are 41 boxers holding 42 world title belts, with WBC/WBA junior welterweight champion Kostya Tszyu the only boxer holding more than one belt.

Currently, there are five vacant belts, the WBA, IBF and WBO at junior middleweight, WBA super-bantamweight and WBA bantamweight.

There are six world champion boxers where it is not immediately clear who they should be logged as representing, as they were born in one country and are now citizens of, or living in, another country.

For this article, I have listed John Ruiz and Eric Morel as being Puerto Rican, the country of their birth, even though both live in the USA and Morel represented the USA at the 1996 Olympic Games.

Dariusz Michalczewski was born in Poland, but has lived and fought all of his professional career in Germany, so I have listed him as representing the latter. Kostya Tszyu is Russian, but is now a citizen of Australia and began his professional career there, so I have listed him as representing Australia.

Juan Carlos Gomez is Cuban and lives in Germany and Joel Casamayor is Cuban but lives in the USA. As professional boxing is banned in their country of birth, they were forced overseas to pursue their dream. For that reason, I have listed them as representing Cuba. I apologize to any boxer if they feel my listing is incorrect.

Even though the USA holds nearly 31% of the world title belt available, that still leaves 41 boxers from 22 other countries holding 42 world title belts.

The full list of countries with a world champion are as follows. Countries with multiple belt holders have the total belts in brackets.

USA 17 world champions (21 belts)
Mexico 6
Puerto Rico 5
Germany 3
Japan 3
Panama 3
Colombia 2
Cuba 2
Britain 2
Thailand 2
Australia 1 (2 belts)
Argentina 1
Brazil 1
Canada 1
France 1
Guyana 1
Kazakhstan 1
Namibia 1
Nicaragua 1
Philippines 1
South Korea 1
Uzbekistan 1
Venezuela 1

It is amazing to think that there are 68 world title belts on the planet and that’s just from the four main bodies.

The proliferation of world sanctioning bodies and boxers calling themselves world champion has been bad for the sport in many ways. However, with 23 countries around the world having at least one boxer with a world championship belt, there are many, many millions of people with a reason to take an interest in the sport.

For boxing to thrive, we have to ensure that these people have the means to be able to support their champions. This, in turn, will allow young boxers wishing to emulate their countries heroes to keep coming through the ranks to ensure the long-term survival of the sport.

There is always a knee jerk reaction by many, who label unknown champions and No.1 contenders from outside the USA as undeserving. But there are still many gems out there in the sport, the USA television networks just haven’t found them all yet.


Paul Upham
Contributing Editor