Boxing
Fighting with the fists alone, in gloves, weight classes and rounds — the oldest codified combat sport.
Quick Facts
United KingdomCharacter & Origin
Training
Who It Suits
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
Comparisons
Catalogs & Databases for Boxing
About Boxing
Boxing is the oldest of the modern combat sports and the only one built entirely on the fists. Fist fighting was known to ancient Greece and Rome, but the present form comes from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England: first Broughton's rules of 1743, then the London Prize Ring rules, and finally the Queensberry rules of 1867, which introduced gloves, three-minute rounds and the count of ten. Technically boxing is narrow and, for that reason, deep. There are five punches — jab, cross, hook, uppercut, and in a broader reading the overhand — and all the skill lies in how they combine with footwork, defence and timing. Slipping, guarding, body movement and rhythm are trained as long as the punches themselves. Training follows a settled shape: skipping rope, shadow boxing, pads, bag, sparring. The conditioning component is high, because rounds repeat and fatigue decides. Amateur boxing (Olympic since 1904) uses shorter rounds, headguards in some categories, and scoring by landed blows; professional boxing runs a longer distance and a different tactical logic. The gravest risk is repeated concussion — which is why both the rules and medical supervision have been changing in recent years.
History
Boxing was part of the ancient Olympic Games from 688 BC. The fight then had no rounds and lasted until submission. From 648 BC pankration was added to it, combining the techniques of boxing and wrestling. Modern boxing comes from England. The first written rules were issued by Jack Broughton on 16 August 1743: a round lasted until a fall, and blows to a downed man and holds below the waist were forbidden. The London Prize Ring Rules of 1838 (revised 1853) still allowed holding and throwing the opponent in bare-knuckle boxing, and only a grip below the waist or on the thigh was a foul. The rules of the Marquess of Queensberry of 1867 were written by John Graham Chambers, and the Marquess merely endorsed them. They introduced gloves, three-minute rounds with a one-minute break, the count to ten and a ban on wrestling. In Britain the Amateur Boxing Association was founded in 1880. Boxing has been at the modern Olympic Games since 1904 and was missing only in 1912, when Swedish law banned it.
Technique
Fighting is with fists in gloves only. The basic punches are the jab, cross, hook and uppercut thrown with the lead and rear hand, and the overhand. The stance is orthodox (left hand and foot forward) or southpaw (right forward), and a boxer who alternates them is a switch-hitter. Boxing is done at three distances: long (the jab), middle (hooks and the cross) and short (uppercuts, hooks and the clinch). Defence rests on slipping (slip, bob and weave, footwork), parrying, covering with the gloves and forearms, and clinching. Boxing punches have been taken over by other arts. The jab, hook, uppercut and overhand passed into Muay Thai. The karateka Joe Lewis, who trained in boxing, won on 17 January 1970 in boxing gloves the first kickboxing bout in North America. The founder of Krav Maga, Imi Lichtenfeld, was the national boxing champion in 1929. Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do, whose founder won a school boxing tournament in Hong Kong in 1958, took footwork from boxing.
Training
Training consists of running, skipping rope, shadowboxing, the heavy and speed bag and focus mitts, repeated in rounds. According to the common description, beginners spend the first period mainly on conditioning and basics and spar only occasionally. Sparring serves for practice and conditioning, not to determine a winner. For example, the Scottish federation permits it only to a registered boxer under the supervision of a qualified coach and applies a concussion protocol after a blow to the head. According to a meta-analysis of 17 studies of amateur boxing, training produces 1.3 injuries per 1,000 hours, most often to the upper limb, mainly sprains and strains. A five-year study of the British national team recorded more injuries in training than in competition, most often to the hand. We have not been able to document a typical training frequency.
Ranks and progression
Boxing has no belts or technical grades. Level is shown by bouts: amateurs are divided into novices and advanced (open) and by age, professionals build up a fight history. Youth compete in the categories of juniors (15–16 years) and youth (17–18), the youth world championships have been held since 1979, the junior ones since 2001.
Who it suits
Starting is possible in childhood. The Scottish federation, for example, registers boxers from the age of 8 and divides them into the categories Cub (8–11), School (11–14), Junior, Youth and Elite (19–40). The youngest box only skills bouts of 3 × 1 minute without hard punches and with a mandatory head protector. The American and Canadian paediatric societies in a 2011 statement recommend opposing boxing for children and adolescents. Some amateur rules have a veterans category from 41 years with shorter rounds. Women’s boxing has been Olympic since London 2012, the first winner was Nicola Adams, and in Los Angeles 2028 there will be seven categories for women and for men. Non-contact classes for people with Parkinson’s disease are offered by Rock Steady Boxing, but a meta-analysis of eight studies from 2025 found no significant effect on balance or fitness in patients over 60.
Competition
Elite amateur bouts of World Boxing have three rounds of three minutes. Since 2025 elite boxing has ten weight categories for each sex, from which the Olympic programme selects seven. Scoring is mainly by the number of clean hits, then their quality. Men in elite amateur boxing have fought without head protectors since 2016, while women continue to wear them. A professional bout has rounds of three minutes, a championship bout at most twelve, the WBC having shortened championship bouts from fifteen rounds in 1983 after the death of Kim Duk-koo. The ten-point system is used for scoring. Championship titles are awarded by the WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO. According to a meta-analysis, the head and neck account for a median of 72% of injuries in amateur competition. An Australian prospective study gives concussion as the most common type of injury, a third of all injuries.
Gear
Training requires gloves, hand wraps, a mouthguard and, for sparring, a headguard. Amateur gloves are 10, 12 or 16 ounces, professional 8 to 12 ounces, and sparring gloves tend to be 2–4 ounces heavier. Hand wraps stiffen the fist against a fracture of the metacarpal bone. The Scottish rules prescribe a headguard for everyone except elite men at elite competitions, for whom it is banned. Boxing takes place in a ring with a side of 4.9 to 7.3 m. The red corner traditionally belongs to the higher-ranked or home boxer, the blue to the guest. The square ring was introduced by the Pugilistic Society in 1838, and the nickname squared circle recalls the circle drawn on the ground.
Philosophy
The very first of the Marquess of Queensberry's rules of 1867 calls for a "fair stand-up fight" in a ring 24 feet square. Further rules banned wrestling and hugging and prescribed new gloves of the best quality. A boxer who was knocked down had ten seconds to get up without assistance. Boxing still rests on these principles today, even though the rules have changed many times. The Olympic federation World Boxing has had a code of ethics since 2025. It requires athletes, coaches, referees and officials to respect the Olympic values of friendship, solidarity and fair play, bans match manipulation and demands impartiality and independence from referees. The code also expressly protects the safety of boxers and their medical care.
Styles and schools
Boxing has two main forms with different rules: Olympic (formerly amateur) and professional. In an Olympic bout five judges score using the ten-point system, and a round may not end in a draw. The deciding factors are the number of hits to the torso and to the front and side of the head, and technical and tactical superiority. For each warning a boxer loses a point with all judges, and a third warning means disqualification. A bout also ends when a boxer is knocked down three times in one round. A professional bout is scheduled for 4, 6, 8, 10 or 12 rounds. Under the unified rules of the North American boxing commissions, three judges score and every knockdown is followed by a mandatory count of eight. The three-knockdown rule does not apply here, nor does the standing count, and no gong saves a knocked-down boxer in any round. Professional titles are awarded side by side by various organizations. The WBC was founded on 14 February 1963 by eleven countries, among them the USA, Mexico, Argentina, the Philippines and France. The IBF grew out of the American United States Boxing Association, and its international branch was founded in November 1983 in Newark. The WBO was founded in 1988 and is based in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Today
In 2023 the IOC withdrew recognition from the IBA (formerly AIBA), the first time in history for an international federation. Olympic boxing is now governed by World Boxing, founded in April 2023 and entrusted with the tournament at the Los Angeles 2028 Games. In the Czech Republic, according to the Czech Olympic Committee, boxing is governed by the Czech Boxing Association, a member of World Boxing, and in 2024 the IBA admitted the competing Czech Boxing Federation. Boxing met MMA as early as UFC 1 in 1993, when the boxer Art Jimmerson, wearing a single glove, submitted to Royce Gracie after a takedown. Holly Holm, a world boxing champion in three weight classes, on the other hand moved to MMA and in 2015 defeated Ronda Rousey. Dan Hodge came from wrestling, a freestyle silver medallist at the 1956 Olympics, who in 1958 won the Chicago Golden Gloves tournament in the heavyweight division. The MMA champion Conor McGregor lost a boxing match to Floyd Mayweather in 2017 by TKO in the 10th round. A review of 39 studies on headguards states that they protect well against lacerations and skull fractures, but their effect against concussion is uncertain.
In culture
Rocky of 1976 won the Oscars for best picture, directing and editing at the 1977 ceremony. Sylvester Stallone was nominated for both lead actor and screenplay, which according to the Academy only Charles Chaplin and Orson Welles had achieved before him. Raging Bull brought Oscars in 1981 to Robert De Niro for lead actor and to Thelma Schoonmaker for editing. The Library of Congress placed both films in the American National Film Registry, Raging Bull in 1990 and Rocky in 2006. Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby won four Oscars in 2005, including best picture, and The Fighter won two in 2011 for supporting roles, for Christian Bale and Melissa Leo. In painting, boxing was captured by George Bellows. His 1909 painting Stag at Sharkey's is owned by the Cleveland Museum of Art. The museum notes that public boxing was then illegal in New York, so bouts were held as private club events in which the visiting boxers were temporary members of the club. This practice is also referenced by the title of Bellows's painting Both Members of This Club from the same year, which is owned by the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
Did you know
Boxers of the ancient Olympic Games wrapped their hands and forearms in soft leather straps. When organized amateur boxing began in 1880, it had only five weight classes: bantamweight up to 54 kg, featherweight up to 57 kg, lightweight up to 63.5 kg, middleweight up to 73 kg and heavyweight with no limit. Today World Boxing has ten for men and ten for women. The Queensberry rules counted as knocked down even a boxer who hangs helplessly on the ropes with his feet off the ground, and forbade seconds from entering the ring during a round. Gloves, however, did not catch on at once. As late as 8 July 1889 a championship title was still fought with bare fists, in John L. Sullivan's bout. Under today's unified professional rules, a boxer who falls out of the ring has 20 seconds to return without assistance. In 1983, at its assembly in Venice, the World Medical Association called for a ban on boxing and confirmed that position in revisions in 2005 and 2017.
Styles & Branches
A competitive form of boxing with a license from age 18: up to twelve rounds, no helmets, three judges and titles of the WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO.
Rules of English bare-knuckle boxing from 1838, revised in 1853. A round ended with a fall, the number of rounds was unlimited, and the last title fight under them took place in 1889.
A competitive form of boxing under World Boxing rules, at the Olympic Games since 1904. Three rounds, five judges, head guards for youth and women.
Frequently asked questions
What is boxing?
According to Britannica, boxing is a sport in which opponents attack and defend with their fists, usually in padded gloves. The winner is the one who outpoints the opponent or deprives him of the ability to continue.
What are the rules of boxing?
In Olympic boxing, hits to the torso and to the front and sides of the head score points, and technical and tactical superiority also counts. A professional bout under the Unified Rules has three-minute rounds with a one-minute break, three scoring judges using the ten-point system, and a mandatory eight count after every knockdown.
How many rounds are there in boxing?
An Olympic bout for both men and women has three rounds of three minutes with a one-minute break. A professional bout is scheduled for 4, 6, 8, 10 or 12 rounds. Championship bouts have at most 12 rounds, which the WBC shortened from the earlier 15.
Is boxing dangerous?
The World Medical Association, in a statement from 1983 revised in 2005 and 2017, regards boxing as qualitatively different from other sports and recommends banning it, the main concern being chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Until a ban, it recommends licences for boxers, a ban on children taking part, and neurological examinations before and after a bout.
How many weight classes are there in boxing?
Competitions of the Olympic federation World Boxing have ten weight classes for men and ten for women. The Olympic tournament in Los Angeles 2028 has seven for each sex, men from 55 kg to over 90 kg and women from 51 to 75 kg.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.