Professional Boxing
This table gives names and limits recognised by the four widely-regarded sanctioning bodies (WBA, WBC, IBF, WBO) and the label used in Boxrec.com's data.
The date is that since which a continuous world title has been recognised by a major sanctioning body; some classes had earlier champions recognised intermittently or by minor bodies. One current weight class with only minor recognition is "super-cruiserweight"; widely used as an informal descriptor, it is a formal weight class of the lightly regarded (professional) International Boxing Association at a limit of 210 lb; the IBA's cruiserweight limit is 190 lb.
| Weight limit (lb / kg / stone) |
Continuous since |
WBA | WBC | IBF | WBO | BoxRec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| unlimited | 1885 | Heavyweight | Heavyweight | Heavyweight | Heavyweight | Heavyweight |
| 200 / 90.7 / 14 st 4 | 1980 | Cruiserweight | Cruiserweight | Cruiserweight | Junior heavyweight | Cruiserweight |
| 175 / 79.4 / 12½ st | 1913 | Light heavyweight | Light heavyweight | Light heavyweight | Light heavyweight | Light heavyweight |
| 168 / 76.2 / 12 st | 1984 | Super middleweight | Super middleweight | Super middleweight | Super middleweight | Super middleweight |
| 160 / 72.5 / 11 st 6 | 1884 | Middleweight | Middleweight | Middleweight | Middleweight | Middleweight |
| 154 / 69.9 / 11 st | 1962 | Super welterweight | Super welterweight | Junior middleweight | Junior middleweight | Light middleweight |
| 147 / 66.7 / 10½ st | 1914 | Welterweight | Welterweight | Welterweight | Welterweight | Welterweight |
| 140 / 63.5 / 10 st | 1959 | Super lightweight | Super lightweight | Junior welterweight | Junior welterweight | Light welterweight |
| 135 / 61.2 / 9 st 9 | 1886 | Lightweight | Lightweight | Lightweight | Lightweight | Lightweight |
| 130 / 59.0 / 9 st 4 | 1959 | Super featherweight | Super featherweight | Junior lightweight | Junior lightweight | Super featherweight |
| 126 / 57.2 / 9 st | 1889 | Featherweight | Featherweight | Featherweight | Featherweight | Featherweight |
| 122 / 55.3 / 8 st 10 | 1976 | Super bantamweight | Super bantamweight | Junior featherweight | Junior featherweight | Super bantamweight |
| 118 / 53.5 / 8 st 6 | 1894 | Bantamweight | Bantamweight | Bantamweight | Bantamweight | Bantamweight |
| 115 / 52.2 / 8 st 3 | 1980 | Super flyweight | Super flyweight | Junior bantamweight | Junior bantamweight | Super flyweight |
| 112 / 50.8 / 8 st | 1911 | Flyweight | Flyweight | Flyweight | Flyweight | Flyweight |
| 108 / 49.0 / 7 st 10 | 1975 | Light flyweight | Light flyweight | Junior flyweight | Junior flyweight | Light flyweight |
| 105 / 47.6 / 7½ st | 1987 | Minimumweight | Strawweight | Mini flyweight | Mini flyweight | Minimumweight |
Notes:
Read more about this topic: Boxing Weight Classes
Famous quotes containing the words professional and/or boxing:
“The American character looks always as if it had just had a rather bad haircut, which gives it, in our eyes at any rate, a greater humanity than the European, which even among its beggars has an all too professional air.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“I can entertain the proposition that life is a metaphor for boxing—for one of those bouts that go on and on, round following round, jabs, missed punches, clinches, nothing determined, again the bell and again and you and your opponent so evenly matched it’s impossible not to see that your opponent is you.... Life is like boxing in many unsettling respects. But boxing is only like boxing.”
—Joyce Carol Oates (b. 1938)