Rocky Marciano had a relatively short career spanning just over 8 years and 49 fights. Ali had a 21-year career and Mayweather is on 20 years and still semi-retired/semi-active when he needs more cash to carry around. are the epitome of out-boxing and boxing defense. They focus more on movement and defense and for them, to hit without getting hit, is much more important than to deliver a knockout blow. Out-boxers and boxer-punchers tend to have longer careers because they sustain less damage during each fight. That’s because they fight in a close distance and sometimes they are willing to “take a punch so they can land one”.Īlthough Julio Cesar Chavez had a 25-year career and is considered a swarmer, so was Rocky Marciano who only had an 8-year career and a fairly weathered nose to show for it. Swarmers and sluggers tend to take more damage during each fight so their careers tend to be a bit shorter.

Boxer-puncher – A blend of the out-boxer and slugger (e.g.

Out-boxer – elegance, and finesse (e.g.Slugger – the embodiment of brutality.Swarmer – overwhelming the opponent by taking away their space and timing.Which brings us to the next topic: A Boxer’s Style has a lot to do with Longevity He started young, reached his peak early, and had fewer fights-per-year while still making a vast amount of money. By 1986 he had won his first WBA world title over Dwight Muhammed Qawi. In contrast to the early 1900’s boxers, Evander Holyfield, who had a 27-year career with a 2.1 fights-per-year rate, started his professional career at the age of 21 in 1984. In today’s boxing world more time and effort goes into higher quality training, there is more money for the top boxers (lessening the need to box often), and there is more knowledge about the detrimental effects of a long boxing career such as CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy).

They grew up poor and had to fight often to make enough money so support themselves and their families. Freddie Mills – debuted Febru101 fights over 14 years fights-per-year of 7.2.īoxers in these early 1900’s eras were often journeymen.Archie Moore – debuted Septem220 fights over 28 years fights-per-year of 7.9.This trend continued into the 1930s and ‘40s where some boxers were over 7 fights per year.

These two were part of this “golden age” and it wasn’t uncommon for boxers to have over 100 fights in their short careers during this era. Sammy Mandell – debuted J122 fights over 15 years fights-per-year of 8.1.Jack Britton – debuted Janu142 fights over 12 years fights-per-year of 11.4.Many fought to make a living and had a huge amount of fights over their careers. The 1920s are considered by many to be the “golden age” of boxing in America when there was a large influx of immigrants, many from Europe, who brought the sport of boxing to the U.S. Why does there seem to be no correlation of these numbers? If you want to take a deeper look into the actual years the average boxer competes and why some boxers can fight 20+ years with more than 3 fights per year while others have a much short career with less Boxers in the Early 1900’s Fought More Often than Boxers Today However, if you look at the Lightweight and Super Featherweight classes, they have the longest career spans over 20 years but the fights per year for the Super Featherweights is a little over half that of the Lightweights. One might expect that the fewer fights per year a boxer has, the longer their career span will be. What is the average career span of a professional boxer? The average career span is approximately 16.7 years when analyzing the longest reining professional boxers in all 17 weight classes recognized by the World Boxing Association (WBA).īroken down by weight class, the career spans and fights per year look like this: Weightclass There are many factors that affect a professional boxer’s career span such as a number of fights per year and the boxer’s style, so let’s break it down. If you are or you want to become a professional or amateur boxer, you may be wondering what the average career span is.

Average professional boxer lifespan