How Often do Boxers Fight? Average Fights in a Year

How often a boxer fights any given year depends on many factors. Boxers who are top professionals are able to pick and choose the best fights so they have far fewer fights per year than an amateur trying to make a name for himself. 

How often do boxers fight? The average fights-per-year among the top professionals that debuted after 1960 are:

• As Professionals – 1-3 Fights per year
• As Amateurs – 12-27 Fights per year

These numbers also assume the boxers started their amateur careers at the age of 15. In reality, some fighters like Oscar De La Hoya started training in the gym at age 6 while others like Nate Campbell didn’t first step in a boxing gym until they were in their mid-20s (Nate was 24). 

With nuance aside, the data shows that as a boxer progresses and as their opponents get increasingly better, they train more often and fight less often.

So, Why is there such a difference between amateurs and professionals?

Amateurs have More Opportunities to Fight

There are many local, regional, and global opportunities for amateurs to find fights. 

Boxing has become a collegiate sport in the U.S., is featured in the Summer Olympics every 4 years, and has many other amateur leagues and awards like the Golden Gloves to compete for. So there is no lack of opportunity to get in the ring as an amateur today. 

Amateur fights are also far less taxing on boxers’ bodies so they can recover faster and fight more often. They only last 3, 3-minute rounds for men and 4, 2-minute rounds for women in the Olympics. 

Not to mention the person across the ring will likely have a lower skill level than the average professional.

In contrast, professional championship fights are 12 rounds for men and 10 rounds for women. This number for men was brought down from 15 rounds only after the tragedy that was Duk Koo Kim versus Ray Mancini in 1982. (read about it on sports.inquirer.net)

Breaking Down the Amateur Data

At 25 fights-per-year, amateur boxers are fighting every two weeks on average and training regularly in between. However, it isn’t consistently every two weeks. 

The 2016 Summer Olympics

The gold medal winner at the 2016 Summer Olympics in the super heavyweight division, Tony Yoka, fought first on Saturday, August 13. His following fights were on the next Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday to finish the tournament. 

That means he fought four times in 9 days. This is more than professionals fight in a single year on average.

Wilfred Benitez

Wilfred Benitez made his professional debut at the age of 15 – the same age the data uses for the start of amateur careers, not professional. He grew up in the boxing gym as part of a major boxing family in Puerto Rico and clocked 129 amateur fights before he turned pro. 

If he put in 25 fights per year, that means he started his amateur career at around 10 years old. 

It is hard to imagine 10-year-old boxing in the ring until you watch this video of a 10-year-old training.

In fact, in the U.S., a boxer must be at least 8 years old to join the US Boxing league. In the U.K. it is possible to start educational boxing at 7 and amateur boxing at 10. 

Professionals have Better Opportunities

At the beginning of anyone’s professional career, they will be fighting often. Typically around 10 fights per year for the first one or two years of their careers when their managers want to rack up wins. 

The goals of the boxer at this stage are to gain experience in the ring, fight some seasoned professionals that could expose some weaknesses, and begin to make a name for themselves. 

As they find some success, the fights become more difficult. More difficult fights mean a longer time necessary to prepare for the next opponent. 

More time watching tape, training new techniques, addressing media, and conditioning. And when the fight is over, more time is needed for recovery before training again. 

Then, if they are lucky, they can retire as one of the greatest boxers ever. Make a comeback. Retire again. And continue to extend their careers with one fight every year or two 

For example, Floyd Mayweather Jr. had a career fights-per-year of approximately 2.4. However, in his first year, he fought 11 times. 

At the end of his career, it took Mayweather Jr. 8 years to have his 11 most recent fights. This includes the Conor McGregor fight he won 2 years after claiming he was retired. 

Sugar Ray Leonard is another example. He fought 7 times in his first year as a professional and took 13 years to fight his last 7 times because he had to come out of retirement more than a few times. 

Boxing Journeymen

As we discussed in the “Are Boxing Matches Fixed?” article, there are journeymen in professional boxing. These boxers are crucial to helping the early careers of tomorrow’s top professionals. 

The nature of their job is to fight when asked, expose a few weaknesses in their opponents while still making them look good, and not get hurt. The occupation of a boxing Journeyman began when managers wanted someone to jump in the ring with their prospects and tell them if that prospect was a future superstar or not. 

Watch this video where Lewis van Poetsch discusses fighting almost every week and putting in 33 fights in 2018. The boxing journeyman has a career record of 9-105-2 and fought 3 times this past June 2019.

These journeymen were not included in the data we analyzed. The analysis was done with the best boxers who debuted after the 1960s for every weight class and therefore had lopsided winning records.

So, 3 fights-per-year is the average for today’s best professional boxers, however, that number would be much higher if journeymen were included. 

Boxers from the Past

The data analyzed did not take account for fighters who began their careers in the early 1900s. This era didn’t really have amateur boxing so professional was the only way to go. 

The purse money was much less during those eras so boxers had to fight more often. 

In contrast to Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s 2.4 fights-per-year, a featherweight named Sandy Saddler debuted in 1944 and clocked 13.5 fights-per-year over a 12-year professional career. 

And another example is Abe Attell who was another featherweight who debuted in 1900 and posted almost 11 fights-per-year over a 16-year career. 

The early 1900s was a different world for boxers. It wasn’t uncommon for a professional to have well over 100 total career fights and between 5 and 15 fights-per-year. 

Conclusion

How often a boxer fights depends on where they are in their career as an amateur or a professional as well as how much they are willing to work to get to the next level. 

An amateur with only 3 fights per year won’t go very far, but a professional with that number is likely a highly successful boxer getting paid to perform their craft. 

In the past, boxing was only for professionals who honed their craft in front of crowds. Today, there are vast amounts of opportunities in amateur leagues to put as many fights under your belt before going professional. 

Boxers who reach the top levels of the sport fought as much as they possibly could until they became professionals. And once they finally make a name for themselves they only fight a few times a year or less.