If you are or you want to become a professional or amateur boxer, you may be wondering what the average career span is. There are many factors that affect a professional boxer’s career span such as a number of fights per year and the boxer’s style, so let’s break it down.
What is the average career span of a professional boxer? The average career span is approximately 16.7 years when analyzing the longest reining professional boxers in all 17 weight classes recognized by the World Boxing Association (WBA).
Broken down by weight class, the career spans and fights per year look like this:
Weightclass | Career in years | Avg. Fights per year |
Heavyweight (200+ lbs.) | 19.1 yrs | 3 fpy |
Cruiserweight (175-200 lbs.) | 17.3 yrs | 3 fpy |
Light Heavyweight (168-175 lbs.) | 17.9 yrs | 4.1 fpy |
Super Middleweight (160-168 lbs.) | 12.7 yrs | 3.7 fpy |
Middleweight (154-160 lbs.) | 18.3 yrs | 4.8 fpy |
Light Middleweight (147-154 lbs.) | 19.8 yrs | 3.5 fpy |
Welterweight (140-147 lbs.) | 18.5 yrs | 3.7 fpy |
Light Welterweight (135-140 lbs.) | 18.7 yrs | 3.6 fpy |
Lightweight (130-135 lbs.) | 20.4 yrs | 6.2 fpy |
Super Featherweight (126-130 lbs.) | 20.8 yrs | 3.4 fpy |
Featherweight (122-126 lbs.) | 13.8 yrs | 6 fpy |
Super Bantamweight (118-122 lbs.) | 14.1 yrs | 3.1 fpy |
Bantamweight (115-118 lbs.) | 15.6 yrs | 4.6 fpy |
Super Flyweight (112-115 lbs.) | 12.3 yrs | 3.3 fpy |
Flyweight (108-112 lbs.) | 14.3 yrs | 5.1 fpy |
Light Flyweight (105-108 lbs.) | 11.0 yrs | 3.6 fpy |
Strawweight (up to 105 lbs.) | 14.7 yrs | 3.4 fpy |
One might expect that the fewer fights per year a boxer has, the longer their career span will be. However, if you look at the Lightweight and Super Featherweight classes, they have the longest career spans over 20 years but the fights per year for the Super Featherweights is a little over half that of the Lightweights.
Why does there seem to be no correlation of these numbers? If you want to take a deeper look into the actual years the average boxer competes and why some boxers can fight 20+ years with more than 3 fights per year while others have a much short career with less
Boxers in the Early 1900’s Fought More Often than Boxers Today
The 1920s are considered by many to be the “golden age” of boxing in America when there was a large influx of immigrants, many from Europe, who brought the sport of boxing to the U.S. Many fought to make a living and had a huge amount of fights over their careers.
Boxers like:
- Jack Britton – debuted January 1, 1911; 142 fights over 12 years; fights-per-year of 11.4.
- Sammy Mandell – debuted July 23, 1919; 122 fights over 15 years; fights-per-year of 8.1.
These two were part of this “golden age” and it wasn’t uncommon for boxers to have over 100 fights in their short careers during this era.
This trend continued into the 1930s and ‘40s where some boxers were over 7 fights per year.
- Archie Moore – debuted September 3, 1935; 220 fights over 28 years; fights-per-year of 7.9.
- Freddie Mills – debuted February 26, 1936; 101 fights over 14 years; fights-per-year of 7.2.
Boxers in these early 1900’s eras were often journeymen. They grew up poor and had to fight often to make enough money so support themselves and their families.
In today’s boxing world more time and effort goes into higher quality training, there is more money for the top boxers (lessening the need to box often), and there is more knowledge about the detrimental effects of a long boxing career such as CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy).
In contrast to the early 1900’s boxers, Evander Holyfield, who had a 27-year career with a 2.1 fights-per-year rate, started his professional career at the age of 21 in 1984. By 1986 he had won his first WBA world title over Dwight Muhammed Qawi.
He started young, reached his peak early, and had fewer fights-per-year while still making a vast amount of money.
Which brings us to the next topic:
A Boxer’s Style has a lot to do with Longevity
There are 4 primary styles of boxing:
- Swarmer – overwhelming the opponent by taking away their space and timing. (e.g. Julio Cesar Chavez)
- Slugger – the embodiment of brutality. These boxers are knockout artists. (e.g. George Foreman)
- Out-boxer – elegance, and finesse (e.g. Muhammed Ali)
- Boxer-puncher – A blend of the out-boxer and slugger (e.g. Sugar Ray Robinson)
Swarmers and sluggers tend to take more damage during each fight so their careers tend to be a bit shorter. That’s because they fight in a close distance and sometimes they are willing to “take a punch so they can land one”.
Although Julio Cesar Chavez had a 25-year career and is considered a swarmer, so was Rocky Marciano who only had an 8-year career and a fairly weathered nose to show for it.
Out-boxers and boxer-punchers tend to have longer careers because they sustain less damage during each fight. They focus more on movement and defense and for them, to hit without getting hit, is much more important than to deliver a knockout blow.
Muhammed Ali and Floyd Mayweather Jr. are the epitome of out-boxing and boxing defense. Ali had a 21-year career and Mayweather is on 20 years and still semi-retired/semi-active when he needs more cash to carry around.
Some Boxers Retire Early and on Top
Rocky Marciano had a relatively short career spanning just over 8 years and 49 fights. He defended his title against Archie Moore in 1955 and decided to retire on top.
He considered a comeback in 1959 against Ingemar Johansson but ultimately decided not to and instead pursued a career in television and business before his untimely plane crash in 1969.
There is also the more recent example of Sven Ottke who had a professional career of only 7 years (debuted when he was 31) and retired on top after successfully defending his title 21 times and having a career record of 34-0.
Longevity Ultimately Comes Down to Health
Nothing can stop a career faster than a bad injury, or at least one that takes a boxer out of their prime.
There are many stories where a boxer was brutally knocked out and was never the same, e.g. Mike Tyson vs. Michael Spinks and Manny Pacquiao vs. Ricky Hatton. Boxing is a brutal sport and those who have an out-boxing style will fare better than those who swarm and are prone to knockouts and other injuries.
It may be inevitable that boxers get injured in the ring so it is important to control the damage they sustain while training. Sparring has recently been under scrutiny for its effects on long term brain damage, so boxers who take care not to spar as hard as a real fight will be better off in the long-run.
And fighters who don’t take care of their overall health won’t have as long of careers. This is true for all athletes, not just boxers. They won’t last as long in the ring and may become more readily injured because of it.
Averages Lack Nuance
As you probably already noticed, averaging a large data set may provide some insight but almost always cannot show how factors like boxing style, age at debut, and active era affect the numbers.
For example, take the data set of potential boxing career spans in years – 3, 4, 2, 7, 4, and 25 years.
The average is 7.5 years for this data set when 5 out of 6 boxers actually had lower career spans than the average. The boxer who was able to last 25 years skews the data.
Conclusion
The average career span of a boxer depends on many factors that the numbers won’t tell you. It is ultimately up to the fighter to control their style of fighting, what fights they choose, and how they train.
If a fighter is lucky enough to avoid any career-ending injury, then it comes down to when that fighter decides it is time to move on from boxing. Being able to stay on your feet and taking care of your health are the most important determining factors in a boxer’s career span.