British fighters have always operated at the top level of world boxing, but only two of them make the cut when it comes to a report on the ‘Top 25 Best Of The Century.’
The first-ever British world champion was a Cornish professional, Robert ‘Bob’ Fitzsimmons, who lived from 1863 to 1917. He was also the sport’s first three-division world champion, which he achieved aged 40, and is in the record books as the lightest ever heavyweight champion.
Since then, there have been many great British divisional rulers up and down the weights from undisputed heavyweight ruler Lennox Lewis to the popular Londoner Frank Bruno via Nottingham’s super-middleweight star Carl Froch.
There is also Scotland’s undisputed stars Ken Buchanan and Josh Taylor, two-weight champion Ricky Hatton, flashy showman Prince Naseem Hamed and middleweights like Chris Eubank, Nigel Benn and Alan Minter as well plenty fighters in the smaller weights such as Charlie and Sunny Edwards and Duke McKenzie.
In terms of British representation in the new list compiled by ESPN, in 12th place is Joe Calzaghe, who won all 46 fights and successfully defended his WBO super middleweight title a record 21 times before beating Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr up at light heavyweight.
Next, in 17th, is Tyson Fury, who had 24 KOs from 2008 to 2024 on his way to becoming a two-time heavyweight ruler. As well as winning his first title on away soil against Wladimir Klitschko, he also went to the US three times and twice stopped the fearsome puncher Deontay Wilder before losing to Oleksandr Usyk last time out in December.
Topping the list is Floyd Mayweather, who retired unbeaten with a perfect record of 50-0 back in 2017, having become a fight-weight world champion and defeated fighters such as Manny Pacquiao, Oscar De La Hoya and Canelo Alvarez in his career.
