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

Ángel Acosta

Source Ángel Acosta (Wikipedia)

Anthony Joshua

Source Anthony Joshua (Wikipedia)

Anthony Ogogo

Source Anthony Ogogo (Wikipedia)

Archie Moore

Source Archie Moore (Wikipedia)

Arild Haugen

Source Arild Haugen (Wikipedia)

Artur Beterbiev

Source Artur Beterbiev (Wikipedia)

Artur Kukk

Source Artur Kukk (Wikipedia)

Arturo Gatti

Source Arturo Gatti (Wikipedia)

Azumah Nelson

Source Wikipedia, Azumah Nelson

Bakhodir Jalolov

Source Bakhodir Jalolov (Wikipedia)

Ben Bril

Source Ben Bril (Olympedia)

Bernard Hopkins

Source Bernard Hopkins (Wikipedia)

Billy Christmas

Source Billy Christmas (Wikipedia)

Bob Fitzsimmons

Source Bob Fitzsimmons (Wikipedia)

Buster Douglas

Source Buster Douglas (Wikipedia)

Canelo Álvarez

Source Canelo Álvarez (Wikipedia)

Carlos Monzón

Source Carlos Monzón (Wikipedia)

Cecilia Braekhus

Claressa Shields

Source Claressa Shields (Wikipedia)

Cuba National Boxing Team

Dallas Malloy

Source Dallas Malloy (Wikipedia)

David Haye

Source David Haye (Wikipedia)

Deontay Wilder

Source Deontay Wilder (Wikipedia)

Eddie Eagan

Source Eddie Eagan (Wikipedia)

Emile Griffith

Source Emile Griffith (Wikipedia)

Evander Holyfield

Source Evander Holyfield, Wikipedia

Ezzard Charles

Source Ezzard Charles (Wikipedia)

Félix Savón

Source Félix Savón (Wikipedia)

Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Source Floyd Mayweather Jr., Wikipedia

Floyd Patterson

Source Floyd Patterson (Wikipedia)

Francis Ngannou

Source Francis Ngannou (Wikipedia)

Frank Bruno

Source Frank Bruno (Wikipedia)

Gene Tunney

Source Gene Tunney (Wikipedia)

Gennady Golovkin

Source Gennady Golovkin - Wikipedia

George Ekaitis

Source George Ekaitis (Wikipedia)

George Foreman

Georgi Kandelaki

Source Georgi Kandelaki (Wikipedia)

Guillermo Rigondeaux

Source Guillermo Rigondeaux (Wikipedia)

Hasanboy Dusmatov

Source Hasanboy Dusmatov (Wikipedia)

Heike Langguth

Source Heike Langguth (Wikipedia)

Henry Armstrong

Source Henry Armstrong (Wikipedia)

Henry Maske

Source Henry Maske (Wikipedia)

Henry Maske

Source Henry Maske (Wikipedia)

Imane Khelif

Source Imane Khelif (Wikipedia)

Ingemar Johansson

István Kovács (boxer)

Source István Kovács (boxer) (Wikipedia)

Jack Dempsey

Jake LaMotta

Source Jake LaMotta (Wikipedia)

Jake Paul

Source Jake Paul (Wikipedia)

James J. Braddock

Source James J. Braddock (Wikipedia)

Showing 51 to 100 of 177 in Played By, page 2 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