Boxing is one of the most popular sports in the world, but exactly how popular it is, well, according to google trends, the word “boxing” is searched over 225,000 times on Google every month.
There are just so many interesting and fascinating facts about this sport, the origins of which can even be traced back to over 3000 years, but more on that later. For now, if you are interested in learning some fun facts, stats, and trends about boxing, you have come to the right post.
We’ve previously covered 69 Personal Training Statistics, and today, we’ll be focused solely on boxing.
So without further ado if you want to garner some knowledge about the sweet science of boxing, read on and check out the latest statistics, facts and trends.
History of Boxing
Let’s start with talking about some of the most interesting facts and stats about the history of the sport.
Boxing has been around for around 5000 years.
Boxing is one of the oldest sports in the world. In fact, historians believe that it dates back to around 3000 BC, according to stone carvings and drawings found on the walls of Egyptian tombs.
Boxing is one of the oldest Olympic sports.
Boxing was introduced into boxing back in late 7th century BC in ancient Greece. Back then, soft leather straps and thongs were used instead of gloves, and the rules were quite different from today.
Source: Olympics.com
Popularity of Boxing:
Boxing was the 8th most popular sport in the US in 2021
Boxing is a very popular sport in the world, and in the US, it was the 8th most popular. However, the popularity of boxing is decreasing slowly. Still, there are a considerable number of boxing fans in the US.
According to a recent survey performed earlier this year, in which 2,072 American adults took part, 33% claimed to be fans of boxing. Only three sports were more popular than boxing, with 62% participants claiming that they were football fans, and 49% people claimed to be fans of basketball and baseball
Sources: Sports Net and Yahoo Sports
The highest Pay Per View sales in history were recorded by a Boxing match
Pay Per View Sales are a great way to determine the popularity of a sport, and boxing holds the record for the highest and second highest PPVs ever sold. On number 1, we have the fight between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. Dubbed as the fight of the century, this fight sold over 4.6 million PPVs and made a PPV revenue of over $410 million.
The second highest PPV buys were also recorded by a boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and MMA star Conor McGreggor, which sold 4.3 million PPVs
Source: The Insider
The largest crowd in an indoors boxing match in the US was recorded in 2021
Boxing has reached new levels of popularity in the US in 2021. Earlier this year, the fight between Canelo Alveraz, and Billy Joel Sounders attracted the largest ground for a boxing match in the US. 73,126 fans attended the fight at AT&T Stadium in Texas, breaking the previous record of 63,000 fans, who attended the Muhammad Ali vs Leon Spinks fight back in 1978.
Source: Sports Pro Media
Do boxers make a lot of money?
Canelo Alveraz, Anthony Joshua, and Jake Paul were the highest paid boxers of 2021
Canello Alveraz is currently the biggest star in the sport of boxing. The now undisputed super middleweight champion was the highest paid boxer of the year, and the 12 highest paid athlete. He made around $61 million from boxing, and another $2 million from endorsements . Both Anthony Joshua and Jake Paul made over $20 million this year
Source: Boxing junkie
Floyd Mayweather is the highest paid boxer of all time
Floyd Mayweather is one of the biggest boxing stars of our time. He has a perfect record of 50 wins and no losses, and over his career, he has made over $800 million dollars in disclosed earnings. That being said, the earnings from a lot of his fights have not been disclosed, and the The disclosed amount of $800 million dollars doesn’t even include PPV shares, endorsements, and the money Mayweather made from his promotion company.
Overall, it is estimated that he has made over a billion dollars over his career, which is more than any other boxer in the world.
Source: SportBible
The Best Boxers
Canelo Alveraz is the best boxer in 2021
Canelo Alveraz is currently the Number 1 ranked boxer in the world. He fought three times in 2021, and also became the undisputed Super middleweight champion of the world, holding all four major belts and the Ring championship as well.
Source: CBS sports
The record for the longest winning streak was made by Jimmy Wilde in 1914
Jimmy Wilde made is boxing debut in 1911, and within about three years, he stayed undefeated and won a total of 93 fights without a single loss. Overall, he had a boxing record of 132 wins and only three losses.
Now, where that was impressive, the level of competition back then was nothing as compared to now and in recent decades. Julio Cesar Chavez stayed undefeated for 89 fights and between 1980 to 2005 he achieved a boxing record of 137 wins and only 6 losses. Floyd mayweather also had a boxing record of 50 wins and no losses. He retired as an undefeated boxer.
Source: The Sun
The Record for most Knockouts in Boxing is held by british boxer Billy Bird
Billy Bird, a British professional boxer, active between 1920 and1948 has 138 knockouts on his record, with 260 wins, 73 losses, 20 draws and 3 no-contests
Souce: Wikipedia
The youngest boxing champion was 17 years old
Many people think that Mike Tyson was the youngest champion in the world. Though he was the youngest heavyweight champion, who won the belt at the age of 20, Wilfred Benitez actually became the WBC light-welterweight champion at the age of 17, back in 1976.
Source: Ring Tv
Manny Pacquiao in an 8 division world champion
Manny Pacquiao is a Filipino boxer and Politician and he holds the record for holding titles in the most division. He started competing professionally at the age of 16, and compiled a record of 62 wins and only 8 losses, winning 12 world titles in 8 different weight classes.
Source: ESPN
Muhammad Ali was a three time undisputed heavyweight champion
Muhammad Ali is widely regarded as the greated heavyweight boxer of all time, and rightfully so, since he competed in perhaps the golden Era of boxing, was the highest paid boxer of his time, was an internatioanl superstar, and to this day, is the only boxer to win the Undisputed heavyweight championship three times. He became the champion for the 3rd time after defeating Leon Spinks in 1978
Source: History.com
Women in boxing
Women did not compete in olympic boxing before 2012
Boxing has been a male dominated sport for a long time and it was only in 2012 when women’s boxing was finally added to the olympics.
Source: The Guardian
Katie Taylor is the best female boxer in 2021
Though female boxers dont enjoy the same level of popularity as male boxers, some female boxing stars have shined brighter than their male counterparts this year. The Irish Boxer, Katie Taylor is one of the best Female boxers of all time, and is currently the number 1 female boxer in the world. She is undefeated with 19 wins and no losses, and is the undisputed womens lightweight champion, and a former olympic gold medalist as well.
Source: DAZN
Claressa Shields became a three division champion in only 10 fights
The record for becoming a three division champion in the shortest amount of time was previously held by Vasyl Lomachenko, who achieved the feat in only 11 fights. However, Claressa Shields broke his record by doing it in 10 fights. She is currently the undisputed womens light middleweight champion, and has also won two olympic gold medals.
Source: DAZN news
Boxing is a Dangerous Sport
On average, 13 boxers die in the ring every year
Boxing can be a very dangerous sport, and according to the statistics, every year, about 13 boxers die because of injuries sustained during a fight.
Source: CNN
Boxing gloves don’t make the sport any safer
Boxing gloves are worn to make the sport safer, but actually protect a fighter’s hands. According to a study from the British Medical Association, boxing gloves make the sport more dangerous, since fighters throw more punches to the head, which leads to more concussions, CTE and brain damage. The same argument has been made for boxing headgear.
Source: Medium
Approximately 20% of boxers end up with brain damage
Almost 20% retired boxers end up with Chronic traumatic brain injury (CTBI). There are many risk factors that affect the likelihood of getting CTBI, which include duration of a boxers career, their age of retirement, their defensive abilities, increased sparring and to some extent genetics as well.
Source: Pubmed
Fascinating Facts about Boxing
A boxer named Salamo Arouch survived the holocost through boxing
Salamo Arouch was a jewish boxer. During the Holocaust, he was imprisoned in Auschwitz, where he was forced to fight other jewish prisoners for the amusement of the Nazi officers. The losers of the fights were sometimes very weak, and the Nazis had a ahabit of killing off the weak.
Salamo Arouch survived for two years, winning around 200 fights before the camp was liberated by the Americans.
Source: The New York Times
The oficcial name of boxing is actually “Puglisim”
This is a fact that very few people know, but the official name of the sport of boxing is Puglisim
Source: Legends Boxing
The longest boxing match went over 110 rounds, and nobody won.
These days, all boxing matchas have twelve rounds at most, however, back in the early days of boxing, there was no limit to the number of rounds, and a fight ended only when a fighter went down. So, in 1803, a fight between Lightweight fighters Andy Bowen and Jack Burke went on for 110 rounds, only for the referee to call it a no contest.
Source: The Manual
Starting a Boxing Gym
- 5.23 Million People Participate in boxing for fitness (up from 4.63 million in 2011) – Statista
- “Industry revenue will likely grow as consumer interests in fitness persists – IBISWorld
- Membership for boutique studios (including boxing gyms) shot up 121% from 2013 to 2017, compared to just 15% with traditional gyms – Fitt Insider
- In addition to that, many people are dropping in via memberships on platforms like ClassPass (See our ClassPass review), where you can drop on anything from a boxing class – to yoga, pilates, cycling, etc. Members use “credits,” and gyms on ClassPass are paid accordingly. Note, gyms can’t set a rate though.
