By Tommy Graves: Taking the main sanctioning bodes into consideration ; WBA, WBC, WBO and IBF. Dismissing Diamond, interims and any other imitation title the main four sanctioning bodies come up with, I have tallied up which country hosts the most world titles.
The invention of regular titles confuses matters but I only counted the officially regarded main champions.
For example Ukraine has 5 main world titles as Vyacheslav Senchenko holds the WBA Welterweight title and Wladimir Klitschko holds the WBA, WBO & IBF Heavyweight titles and older brother Vitali holds the WBC Crown.
This collection of data goes to show the nations clearly currently excelling in boxing, producing a large number of world champions.
Mexico -16
USA-14
Japan – 6
Ukraine- 5
Philippines – 4
Germany – 3
South Africa – 3
Thailand- 3
Russia – 2
Panama – 2
Poland – 1
Cuba – 1
Kazakhstan – 1
U.K (Britain) – 1
Romania – 1
Austria – 1
Puerto Rico – 1
Indonesia – 1
Australia – 1
Argentina – 1
Nicaragua – 1
Up until recently the U.K had a handful of champions. Khan who lost both the IBF and WBA titles to Peterson via a controversial decision, Froch lost his WBC belt by being outclassed by Ward, Haye lost the WBA version of the heavyweight titles
to Wladmir Klitschko. Scotland’s Ricky Burn’s held the WBO super featherweight title but gave it up to pursue a career at lightweight.
Only Welshman Nathan Cleverly holds a world title for the U.K at this current time.
While the numbers look good for countries like Mexico and America it seems the top two leave every other nation in the dust.
It is interesting to see how trends of world champions appear and how it changes over time.
It will also be interesting to see if the 2012 London Olympics produces some future world champions.
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