Boxing has long ceased to be just a sport. Nowadays, it is rather a large-scale spectacle that has replaced the gladiatorial battles for millions of spectators. And while watching fights in amateur boxing still attracts mostly specialists and athletes, fights in the professional ring are a real first-class show. In this article you will learn about the weight categories in boxing that are especially loved by fans of this sport. And also about the fights of which athletes are watched by the largest number of viewers.
Modern boxing, in which weight categories were determined more than a hundred years ago, is divided into amateur and professional. At all times, fighting in the professional ring was considered more spectacular, and almost every “amateur” sooner or later turned into a professional. Such a transition was considered prestigious not only by little-known, but promising athletes, but also by winning the highest star awards in amateur sports. It is customary to refer to such awards victories at the Olympics, the title of champion of Europe or the world. And if for an amateur the weight categories in boxing do not particularly affect the opportunities for development, then in professional sports a lot depends on the category in which the fighter appears. Moreover, not only prestige is at stake here, but also fees for the battle. This fact seems rather amusing, especially taking into account the fact that in other types of martial arts, the weight of opponents affects the ratings of performances to a much lesser extent. For example, weight categories in Thai boxing have almost no effect on the salaries of fighters and respect for their achievements.
In amateur boxing, it is customary to distinguish only ten weight categories, while in professional boxing there are almost twice as many (to be precise, seventeen). Weight categories in boxing is a rather arbitrary concept, since sometimes a fighter just needs to gain or lose a couple of kilograms in order to change the category. This is especially true for middle and welterweight categories.
If everything is clear for the athletes in this sport - depending on his weight, he is forced to fight for the championship according to one of the versions, and there are four of them in professional boxing: WBO, IBF, WBA and WBC - then the audience’s love for this or that weight formed over the years, and sometimes even decades. Let's look at what weight categories in boxing are in great demand among the viewer in our time.
Heavyweight. It is this category that since the time of Muhammad Ali is considered to be the king of boxing. Many experts even joke about it on the water, that, they say, there is a heavyweight and the rest of the boxing - a total of two categories. Even the passing fights of “heavyweights” gather a huge number of spectators, and the fees of athletes for a fight (especially for fights for a particular title) can reach tens of millions of dollars.
A light weight. No matter how paradoxical this may sound, light weight follows the heavyweight in popularity in boxing. This is due primarily to the fact that watching light technical fighters during boxing is much more interesting than clumsy heavyweights. If in heavyweight everything can be solved overnight by a single blow, because of which the opponents are careful, then light weight is a spectacular box full of exchanges in which the fighters are not afraid to inflict a huge number of blows on each other.
First welterweight. And closes the top three finalists another technical category. Like fighters from the light category, boxers weighing up to sixty-six and a half kilograms in the ring often go all-in, perfectly demonstrate their technique and ability to strategically plan the fight. It is enough to watch at least one fight of Konstantin Tszyu to understand why this category attracts so many spectators.