Professional boxing was prohibited in many communist nations, esp. in the Eastern Bloc and also Cuba. But where else? Let's list off all of the countries that banned or still ban boxing in the pro ranks.
Norway and Sweden from the late 1960ties until af few years ago. Wery hard to make fights in Sweden for longer than 12 minutes duration.
As somebody writing a History of Ancient Boxing. It was literally all of Christendom. Both Catholic and Orthodox.
Interesting, yeah that could play a role (people's religions). Pakistan just recently got a world-class fighter. Waseem Mohammed I believe. Title challenger.
It is difficult to build talent in a sport when a sport is banned. What was weird was Sweden banned boxing when the country was becoming a hotbed for boxing in the 1960s. Jimmy Ellis and Floyd Patterson fought a heavyweight title fight there in '68. Sonny Liston fought there at least four times in the 1960s. Johansson was one of the biggest stars in the country. Boxers seemed to really enjoy fighting there. But it was banned in 1970.
That is very interesting actually! By the way, if we compare the boxing pedigrees of Sweden (three world champs) with Poland (four world champs in history) which nation do you feel has the sharper pedigree historically? Do Johansson's feats alone trump what Poland's boxers have shown so far?
Tough call. Being in Chicago, I've seen a lot of Polish fighters box in person - Golota, Adamek, Fonfara, Wach, Szpilka. Poland has had more top fighters. And I thought Golota should've been named champ against Byrd and Ruiz. But I am biased towards heavyweights, and Johansson was the world heavyweight champ, and he won it emphatically. I am also a big fan of Badou Jack, he's rarely in a bad fight. So Sweden probably gets the slight nod. Quality over quantity, I guess. What do you think?
I respect your opinion. For me Poland has the slight edge here because they produced six heavyweight world title challengers (with a possible seventh on the way). For that reason I rate Poland behind only Ukraine and England on the list of top European countries for heavyweight boxing history due to the quality and depth of that weight class out of Poland in the last decade and beyond. Russia would be a close #4. Golota was immortalized due to the Bowe battles and I'm willing to bet more people know him than they know Alexander Povetkin.
