Via Ken Hisner: When you think of the greatest boxers in the history of the sport, people often think of boxers from the United States like “Sugar” Ray Robinson, Henry “Homicide Hank” Armstrong, Harry “Pittsburgh Windmill” ” Greb, Sam Langford from Canada fighting outside the US, Joe “Brown Bomber” Louis, Rocky Marciano, etc.
In more modern times and today, there are Muhammad “The Greatest” Ali, Roberto “Hands of Stone” Duran, Julio “JC” Cesar Chavez, Sr. Floyd “Money” Mayweather, Jr., Lennox “The Lion” Lewis, Manny “Pac Man” Pacquiao, “Sugar” Ray Leonard, Oscar “Golden Boy” De La Hoya, Felix “Tito” Trinidad, Carlos Monzon, Pernell “ Sweet Pea” Whitaker, Thomas “Hit Man” Hearns and others.
When looking at the list of IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO champions of the International Boxing Organization with the IBO, I found the following list of countries:
Heavyweights: Ukraine and Great Britain
Cruiser Class: France, Australia, Great Britain and South Africa
Light Rivals: Russia and Kyrgyzstan
Super middleweight: Mexico
Middleweight: USA and two from Kazakhstan
Welding super class: USA
Welterweights: two from the United States
Ultralightweight: Great Britain and Dominican Republic
Lightweight: USA
Super featherweight: USA and Dominican Republic
Featherweights: Three from Mexico and the UK
Super chicken class: USA and Uzbekistan
Bantamweights: Japan
Super fly: Two from Japan, Puerto Rico and South Africa
Flyweights: Mexico, United Kingdom and Ukraine
Flyweight: Two from Japan, South Africa and Puerto Rico
Minimum weight class: Two people from Thailand, Mexico and Japan
If you sum the countries, the following table displays:
America 7; Mexico 5; Great Britain and Japan 4; South Africa, Dominican Republic, Thailand, Ukraine, Kazakhstan 2, Uzbekistan, Puerto Rico, France, Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Australia 1
The United States no longer dominates baseball with players from the Dominican Republic and others from Latin countries and Spain.
They still dominate basketball, and the greatest soccer player from Brazil is Pele, a sport that the United States has never dominated. Gymnastics can come from European and Asian countries.
Although USA may have more world champions on the list, they still have participants in other sports like basketball and football etc.
Since this is a boxing site, did you notice that we have to drop to middleweight before the USA has a world champion?
The best heavyweight right now might be a light heavyweight like Dimitry Bivol from Kyrgyzstan or a Russian boxer outside of Canada in Artur Beterbiev.
While not a heavyweight fan myself, here we have one from Ukraine and the other from the UK. One of the best heavyweight fighters from Japan is Naoya Inoue, the world bantamweight champion.
In recent years it has been Gennadiy ‘GGG’ Golovkin from Kazakhstan and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez from Mexico, but after witnessing them in the third game too late about four years ago, you wouldn’t consider who is the best.
I look forward to your comments.
