Boxing History

Boxing competitions have been practiced since ancient times. Around 688 BC was accepted as an Olympic sport (the ancient Greeks called Pygmachia), the ones participating in these games were trained with sandbags (called Korykos), the boxers kept free fingers, carrying leather straps (called himantes) in hands, wrists and sometimes on the forearms, to protect them from injury.

The word “boxing” came into use in England in the eighteenth century to distinguish between the struggle to resolve disputes and fight under rules established as a sport. It is now used to describe a sport in which two opponents (fighters) have padded gloves, face in the ring and fight an agreed number of rounds following a few rules. Although men have always been the most numerous participants, there are references to fights between women during and at the end of the twentieth century were organized eighteenth century female struggles again.

Queensberry rules

Boxing is considered a sport in which two fighters face beating, according to precise rules, coated with special gloves and torso bare fists by professionals. The first codification of the rules governing boxing matches dating back to 1743, while still in force rules were established in 1889 by the Marquis of Queensberry, who among other things introduced the use of gloves.

The boxing matches began performing unlimited rounds, then 20 and then 15 rounds, now the World Championships and Continental are conducted 12 rounds, the championships with national title at stake and the 10-round non-title bouts game or some minor title are made 4,6,8 or 10 rounds as agreed, the fighting in the amateur field is carried out at 4 rounds of 2 minutes (round professional bouts are three minutes).

During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the bare-knuckle boxing was an important precursor of boxing in Britain. But certainly it spreads beyond the shows held in fields and tennis courts pediment in London in the early nineteenth century. None of these features were present in bare-knuckle boxing. The first one to write such rules was Jack Broughton, a boxer of the 1730s, they opened their own stadium in 1743. He devised the rules to give some protection to their fighters (he had killed an opponent two years earlier) .

Boxing-historiaDurante creating the next generation of Queensberry rules and fighting gloves pushed. The fights bare-knuckle is usually held under the “New Rules” sanctioned by the pugilistic Benevolent Society in 1866, which had supplanted the “pugilistic Asociation’s Revised Rules” of 1853. It is often popularly called as “the Rules of the London Prize Ring “.

Weight categories

boxing glovesThe success of boxers has always been associated with size. In the early years of boxing, however, there was only one “champion”, which used to always be one of the heaviest. The term “lightweight” is used since the early nineteenth century and sometimes fighting between the lighter men were organized, but there was no specific Championship for them.

The terms lightweight, welterweight, middleweight and heavyweight became common in the late nineteenth century, but there was no universally recognized definition of each weight category. Throughout the twentieth century, new categories were added, expanding the range from the lowest the “Strawweight” (straw weight) to “superheavyweight” (superheavy weight) but no consensus on their definitions.

In the early days of boxing, all fighters were “professionals” in the sense that few were fighting for “pleasure” rather than for money.

By then, the old pros of bare-knuckle “Prize-Ring” were in clear decline. The sport had always been illegal, but had survived until the beginning of the century because he had great popular support and because it had supported many influential men. By 1867, however, the outcome of the fights were increasingly suspicious and even sometimes the contestants are not presented to the fights, so it got less money and disappeared slowly pugilism.

On February 7, 1882, in the city of Mississippi (USA), the last boxing championship held between bare-knuckle heavyweight.

Boxing has been around for many years and evolved a lot, so you can’t really tell who was the best boxer ever, but we can determine who are the richest of them all. Here is my top 10 richest boxers in the world.

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