Sport

Boxing

Also Known As Pugilism · The Sweet Science A colloquial epithet coined by sportswriter Pierce Egan for early 19th-century English bare-knuckle prizefighting, still used for boxing today.

Combat Sports

Boxing is a combat sport in which two competitors wearing padded gloves throw punches at each other for a series of timed rounds. Pugilism is documented in Egyptian and Sumerian art as early as the third millennium BC, and it was included in the ancient Olympic Games from 688 BC. Modern boxing developed in England: the champion Jack Broughton drew up the first widely used code of rules in 1743, and the Marquess of Queensberry Rules, published in 1867 and drafted by John Graham Chambers, introduced padded gloves and timed rounds and remain the direct basis of boxing as practiced today. Bouts are contested within a weight class, from lighter divisions such as flyweight up through heavyweight, so that opponents meet at broadly comparable size and reach; a standard round lasts three minutes, with a one-minute rest between rounds, and a contest runs three rounds at the Olympic amateur level or up to twelve rounds in a professional world title fight. A bout is won by knockout or technical knockout (the referee stopping the contest), or, if it goes the distance, on points awarded by ringside judges scoring each round, most commonly under the ten-point-must system in which the round winner receives ten points and the loser nine or fewer. Unlike most sports in this atlas, professional boxing today has no single global sanctioning body; several competing organizations recognize their own versions of world championships, a fragmentation genuinely distinct from the sport's own governance history.

Facts

Origin Year

3000 BCE 3

Marks the earliest surviving visual evidence of pugilism, in Egyptian and Sumerian art of the third millennium BC, far predating the entity's primary origin-year (1867, the Marquess of Queensberry Rules), which records the sport's modern codified form rather than its antiquity.

Originating Region

Ancient Egypt and the ancient Mediterranean world (earliest evidence); England (for the 1867 modern codification) 4

International Governing Body

The International Boxing Association, founded 1946 as the International Amateur Boxing Association, headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, governs Olympic and amateur boxing; professional boxing has no equivalent single global sanctioning body. 4

Playing Surface

Ring 1

Disputed

Origin Year

1867 4

1867 marks the publication of the Marquess of Queensberry Rules, which introduced padded gloves and timed rounds and underlie boxing as practiced today, taken here as the sport modern codified origin. Pugilism itself is documented in Egyptian and Sumerian art as early as the third millennium BC and was an ancient Olympic event from 688 BC, so boxing antiquity as bare handed fighting goes back millennia further than its modern codified form, with no single origin point resolvable.

Identity

Symbol

Gloved fists; boxers wear protective gloves and hand wraps while throwing punches in a ring. 1

Classification

Olympic Programme Status

Current Olympic Sport 2

Connections

Ancestor Of

Kickboxing

Source Kickboxing, Wikipedia

Associated With

Martial Arts

Source Wikipedia, Martial Arts

Mixed Martial Arts

Source Mixed martial arts, Wikipedia

Featured In

1904 Summer Olympics

Source Wikipedia: Boxing at the 1904 Summer Olympics

1908 Summer Olympics

Source Wikipedia: Boxing at the 1908 Summer Olympics

1920 Summer Olympics

Source Wikipedia: Boxing at the 1920 Summer Olympics

1924 Summer Olympics

Source Wikipedia: Boxing at the 1924 Summer Olympics

1928 Summer Olympics

Source Wikipedia: Boxing at the 1928 Summer Olympics

1932 Summer Olympics

Source Wikipedia: Boxing at the 1932 Summer Olympics

1948 Summer Olympics

Source Wikipedia: Boxing at the 1948 Summer Olympics

1952 Summer Olympics

Source Wikipedia: Boxing at the 1952 Summer Olympics

1956 Summer Olympics

Source Wikipedia: Boxing at the 1956 Summer Olympics

1960 Summer Olympics

Source Wikipedia: Boxing at the 1960 Summer Olympics

1968 Summer Olympics

Source Wikipedia: Boxing at the 1968 Summer Olympics

1972 Summer Olympics

Source Wikipedia: Boxing at the 1972 Summer Olympics

1976 Summer Olympics

Source Wikipedia: Boxing at the 1976 Summer Olympics

1980 Summer Olympics

Source Wikipedia, 1980 Summer Olympics

1984 Summer Olympics

Source Wikipedia, 1984 Summer Olympics

1988 Summer Olympics

Source Wikipedia, 1988 Summer Olympics

1992 Summer Olympics

Source Wikipedia, 1992 Summer Olympics

1996 Summer Olympics

Source Wikipedia, 1996 Summer Olympics

2024 Summer Olympics

Asian Games

Olympic Games

Source International Olympic Committee, Official Olympic History Reference

Governed By

International Boxing Association (IBA)

Why this is disputed. IBA governed Olympic and amateur boxing as AIBA/IBA from 1946, but the IOC suspended IBA in 2019 and voted on 22 June 2023 to withdraw its recognition entirely over governance, finance and corruption concerns, the first expulsion of an international federation from the Olympic movement; the IOC ran boxing at the Paris 2024 Olympics directly and in February 2025 granted only provisional recognition to a rival body, World Boxing, for the 2028 Olympics. IBA disputes the IOC's action and continues to describe itself as the sport's rightful governing body, so whether IBA still governs boxing today is genuinely contested rather than settled; see the recorded dissent and open question on this edge.

Source Wikipedia, International Boxing Association

Long-Form Articles

Why Professional Boxing Has Four World Champions at Once

Played By

Aaron McKenna

Source Aaron McKenna (Wikipedia)

Aaron Pryor

Source Aaron Pryor (Wikipedia)

Abass Baraou

Source Abass Baraou (Wikipedia)

Abdullah Mason

Source Abdullah Mason (Wikipedia)

Abe Attell

Source Abe Attell (Wikipedia)

Abner Mares

Source Abner Mares (Wikipedia)

Acelino Freitas

Source Acelino Freitas (Wikipedia)

Ad Wolgast

Source Ad Wolgast (Wikipedia)

Adolpho Washington

Source Adolpho Washington (Wikipedia)

Adonis Rivas

Source Adonis Rivas (Wikipedia)

Adonis Stevenson

Source Adonis Stevenson (Wikipedia)

Adrian Diaconu

Source Adrian Diaconu (Wikipedia)

Adrián Hernández

Source Adrián Hernández (boxer) (Wikipedia)

Adrien Broner

Source Adrien Broner (Wikipedia)

Agapito Sánchez

Source Agapito Sánchez (Wikipedia)

Agit Kabayel

Source Agit Kabayel (Wikipedia)

Akhmed Kotiev

Source Akhmed Kotiev (Wikipedia)

Akinobu Hiranaka

Source Akinobu Hiranaka (Wikipedia)

Akira Yaegashi

Source Akira Yaegashi (Wikipedia)

Al Cole

Source Al Cole (Wikipedia)

Alan Minter

Source Alan Minter (Wikipedia)

Alberto Dávila

Source Alberto Dávila (Wikipedia)

Alberto Machado

Source Alberto Machado (Wikipedia)

Alberto Puello

Source Alberto Puello (Wikipedia)

Alessandro Mazzinghi

Source Alessandro Mazzinghi (Wikipedia)

Alex Arthur

Source Alex Arthur (Wikipedia)

Alexander Muñoz

Source Alexander Muñoz (Wikipedia)

Alexander Povetkin

Source Alexander Povetkin (Wikipedia)

Alexandro Santiago

Source Alexandro Santiago (Wikipedia)

Alexis Argüello

Source Alexis Argüello (Wikipedia)

Alexis Vastine

Source Alexis Vastine (Wikipedia)

Alfonso Frazer

Source Alfonso Frazer (Wikipedia)

Alfonso Ratliff

Source Alfonso Ratliff (Wikipedia)

Alfred Kotey

Source Alfred Kotey (Wikipedia)

Alfredo Escalera

Source Alfredo Escalera (Wikipedia)

Alfredo Layne

Source Alfredo Layne (Wikipedia)

Alicia Ashley

Source Alicia Ashley (Wikipedia)

Allan Green

Source Allan Green (Wikipedia)

Alycia Baumgardner

Source Alycia Baumgardner (Wikipedia)

Amanda Serrano

Source Amanda Serrano (Wikipedia)

Amir Khan

Source Amir Khan (Wikipedia)

Ana Julaton

Source Ana Julaton (Wikipedia)

Anderson Silva

Source Wikipedia: Anderson Silva

Andre Berto

Source Andre Berto (Wikipedia)

Andre Ward

Source Andre Ward (Wikipedia)

Andreas Kotelnik

Source Andreas Kotelnik (Wikipedia)

Andrew Cancio

Source Andrew Cancio (Wikipedia)

Andrew Moloney

Source Andrew Moloney (Wikipedia)

Andy Lee

Source Andy Lee (boxer) (Wikipedia)

Andy Ruiz Jr.

Source Andy Ruiz Jr. (Wikipedia)

Showing 1 to 50 of 177 in Played By, page 1 of 4.

In the Other Atlases

Found In

Africa

Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.

Sources

1. Wikipedia, Boxing

Wikimedia Foundation

Infobox, also known as
Pugilism
Early London prize ring rules section
The British sportswriter Pierce Egan coined the term "the sweet science" as an epithet for prizefighting-or more fully "the sweet science of bruising"-as a description of England's bare-knuckle fight scene in the early nineteenth century.
lead section
usually done wearing protective equipment, such as protective gloves, hand wraps, and mouthguards.
Lead
Taking place in a boxing ring, it involves two opponents throwing punches at each other for a predetermined amount of time