Boxing is a sport which prides itself on its drive for inclusivity and open to all, but MSL can reveal despite the rise and popularity across the world, the USA is still the main breeding ground for young fighters.
Our investigation looked at world’s 53 boxing World Champions, consisting of 18 weight divisions with five available belts in each division (WBA, WBC, IBF, WBO and the Ring Title).
It is clear, that champions come from all over the world, with 17 different countries having at least one or more fighter at the top of their division. However, different countries seem to be strong in different weight categories.
Some countries dominate the boxing landscape more than others with the United States taking just under 25% of the pie with a whopping 13 world champions. These come from the Middleweight division and below, with a notable dominance in the Welterweight division where they hold three out of four world champions (Mario Barrios, Jaron Ennis and Brian Norman Jr).
The USA, UK and Mexico
Boxing and the USA are intertwined with one another, their dominance comes as no surprise with Las Vagas being named as the home of boxing in the past and iconic Heavyweights such as Mohammad Ali and Mike Tyson. However, it’s European giants who have dominated the Heavyweight division after Deontay Wilder was dethroned by Brit Tyson Fury in 2020. These days the blue-ribbon division is dominated by European giants Oleksandr Usyk (Ukraine) and Daniel Dubois (United Kingdom).
The Heavyweight division has been a shining light for the UK fight scene with Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury being the two main protagonists over the last century and now Daniel Dubois looks set to take the baton after his dramatic win against Joshua.
Boma Brown, who trains in Liverpool’s famous Everton Red Triangle (ERT) gym, has made a promising start to his heavyweight career with five wins including three knockouts, most recently fighting on fellow ERT fighter, Nick Ball’s card at the M&S Bank arena. Brown is set to be out again on the 6th of December at the Exhibition Centre, Liverpool.
Asia
Interestingly, Asia as a continent dominate the lower weight divisions with a Japanese clean sweep in the Bantam and Super Bantam divisions, these consisting of Naoya Innoue being undisputed in the former and Takuma Innoue, Junto Nakatani, Ryosuke Nishida and Yoshiki Takei being champions in the latter. Reasons for this pattern could be linked to studies, such as The Behaviour and Evolution (Phillipe Rushton), showing East Asians tend to have smaller physical bodies which therefore lends itself to the lighter weight classes. An anomaly to this is Chinese heavyweight contender Zhilei Zhang who has proven himself to be an elite fighter with wins over Wilder and Joe Joyce.
Liverpool amateur boxer Scott Taylor believes these trends are linked to certain countries culture: “Asia’s dominance does not surprise me, they have strong links to mixed martial arts so the cross over to boxing I think is natural.
“America and Mexico have great former pros who people look up too, you know Tyson (Mike), Ali (Mohammad), Ricardo Lopez so I think this causes more kids to be inspired”.
Taylor believes there could be a new era of British boxing pro’s coming through, “I think we (UK) are thriving, there are so many English fighters people can look up too, not even just the obvious ones like Dubois (Daniel) and Fury (Tyson) but Sunny Edwards, Nick Ball, even Johnny Fisher, these lads are selling out places and that can only be good for the English scene.
“Saudi (Arabia), yes, that will definitely have an impact, I think they already had one of their boxers on the card (Ziyad Almaayouf) so yeah they are going to grow their stock of great fighters which is great for the sport, a rising tide floats all boats!”.
Featherweight division
Nick Ball is one of the UK’s most recent world champions after he dethroned America’s Raymond Ford in June before his first defence last month against Ronny Rios (USA) at the M&S Bank Arena, Liverpool. The Liverpudlian became the UK’s third WBA Featherweight champion since the turn of the century, joining a list including Northern Irelands Carl Frampton and Nottingham’s Leigh Wood.
The featherweight division shows the dominance of the three main players in boxing with the USA, UK and Mexico having more than double WBA champions in the division, since the turn of the century, than any other nation.
There is speculation that Japan’s Naoya Inoue might move up to Featherweight to create a super fight with Ball, which would give Inoue the opportunity to become Japan’s first WBA featherweight world champion since Shozo Saijo in 1968. Speaking to the media, Ball said “Why not” and believes it would be an “All action” affair.
The Future
Boxing’s elite is spread across the world however a majority comes from the areas with rich history of the sport, such as the United Kingdom, the USA and Mexico. These trends look set to stay with a pleather of young fighters coming from these countries, such as the USA’s Jesse Rodriguez already being super flyweight world champion at the tender age of 24. But could this new era of Riyadh Season and Saudi backed boxing pave the way for a new trend of Middle Eastern boxers to rise to the top of the sport?
