One of the frequent conversations about boxing for the last few years has been the inactivity of the top fighters in the world. We complain how rarely they fight and how much more often they fought in the past. I thought I'd check and see if the griping we have been doing is accurate or a figment of our collective imaginations. The answer is yes, they fight less. I'm going to summarize, but for those interested, down below are year by year details with exceptions I took the Ring Magazine top ten pound for pound fighters at the beginning of each year and tracked how often they fought in the next twelve months. The differences are notable. During the 1990s the top ten fighters fought in 258 fights. Averaging 2 1/2 fights per year is not too bad. That number dropped to 179 fights in the 2000s, It actually rose to 184 in the 2010s. So, for two decades the best fighters in the world have been fighting less than two fights a year. In the last decade, hardly any of them have even fought three fights in a single year. One note, the two highest fight totals since 2001 happened in 2011 (25) and 2012 (22). These totals are strictly attributable to Thai flyweight Pongsaklek Wonjongkam. Wonjongkam fought 13 times over the two year span. 1990 - 29 Fights 1991 - 28 Fights 1992 - 32 Fights - Only nine fighters - Khaosai Galaxy retired and never fought. 1993 - 36 Fights 1994 - 31 Fights 1995 - 24 Fights 1996 - 30 Fights 1997 - 28 Fights 1998 - 15 Fights - Quartey and Whitaker did not fight. 1999 - 24 Fights 2000 - 23 Fights - Mark Johnson did not fight 2001 - 19 Fights 2002 - 14 Fights - Only nine fighters - Ricardo Lopez retired and did not fight. 2003 - 19 Fights 2004 - 18 Fights 2005 - 20 Fights 2006 - 19 Fights 2007 - 20 Fights 2008 - 13 Fights - Winky Wright and Floyd Mayweather did not fight. 2009 - 14 Fights - Only nine fighters - Joe Calzaghe retired and did not fight. 2010 - 18 Fights 2011 - 25 Fights 2012 - 22 Fights - Giovanni Segura did not fight 2013 - 15 Fights 2014 - 15 Fights - Andre Ward did not fight. 2015 - 14 Fights - Only eight fighters - Carl Froch and Juan Manuel Marquez retired and did not fight. 2016 - 21 Fights 2017 - 20 Fights 2018 - 19 Fights - Guillermo Rigondeaux did not fight. 2019 - 15 Fights - Donnie Nietes did not fight. 2020-2021 - Legitimate COVID Excuses 2022 - 15 Fights
Shoutouts to Wonjongkam, one of the most underrated fighters of the last 20 years. Here's something that's kinda funny. In 2019 the top ten pfp boxers fought 15 times, one hundred years earlier in 1919 Harry Greb went 45-0 in a single year.
I think if I had gone back through history you would see the fighters averaging less bouts decade by decade, WW2 years excepted. The good news is that the fighters cannot get too much more inactive than they currently are.
Muhammad Ali once fought 8 times in 1 year in 5 different countries. https://www.boxingforum24.com/threa...es-in-1-year-in-5-different-countries.688428/ Mike Tyson used to fight every 2 months.
Most of those guys shouldn't be in a sparring session with Greb much less a sanctioned fight. It's comical people boast about this like it's a good thing.
If you limit it to champions and hall of famers it's 15-0. Which ties what the top 10 boxers p4p according to ring mag did in 2019. Also I'm not "boasting" about this. I just mentioned it because I thought it was funny.
The stakes are much higher these days. There's far more money to be made. Terence Bumford made $6 million for Shawn Porter who was 0-4 against competition that didn't suck.
