· Tom
Is This Truly A Golden Era For Boxing In The UK?
There is little doubt right now that boxing in the UK is enjoying something of a golden period. The heavyweights get their fair share of coverage right now with Anthony Joshua – arguably the golden boy – at the top of the pile. From Joshua, to Tyson Fury, to Tony Bellew to James DeGale, there’s a whole host of tremendous UK fighters right now showing that the strength and depth of fighters in the UK is impressive. Currently, 14 belts belong to fighters from the UK, but how does this compare to other nations?
We decided to look at the 17 different weights and each organisation to see which nationalities held each belt. Where two belts are held by one fighter, this would count twice in our analysis and that is the same throughout this piece. The States currently hold 11 belts, with Mexico in third with 8. Compared to the size of the countries, those figures measure favourably for the UK. If we rewind back to (an arbitrary) 1st January 2000, how did the numbers look then?
The USA’s dominance in world boxing was clear to see. With Bernard Hopkins, Roy Jones Jr, Diego Corrales and Floyd Mayweather Jr leading the way, the Americans had plenty of world champions, holding 21 belts across all weights. The UK held 8 belts while Mexico once again were close behind with 5.
During that time, belts have changed hands 815 times. Of course, some belts were successfully defended numerous times.
Here, you can see the boxers who successfully defended belts the most number of times. Unfortunately, for the likes of Poland, despite having one dominant fighter in Dariusz Michalczewski, they rank lowly in this type of analysis which we acknowledge is somewhat unfair.
Looking at the breakdown of the 815 times belts have changed hands, the States lead the way winning belts on 193 occasions, Mexico come second with 124 belts and the UK back in third with 58. Breaking the data down even further, the sheer number of fighters in USA and Mexico has seen them pick up so many belts; Mexico especially at the lighter weights. Given that the UK have held belts on 58 occasions since 2000 and 14 are currently held by active fighters, it is fair to say that is well and truly a golden era in UK Boxing.
