The first middleweight fight with gloves ''may'' have been between George Fulljames and Jack (Nonpareil) Dempsey (no relation to the more famous Heavyweight of the Same Name ). Dempsey knocked out Fulljames on July 30 , 1884 .
In the modern era, middleweight means that the fighter's official weight does not exceed 160 pounds (73 kg). (In practice, however, since weigh-ins take place usually 24 hours before the actual fight, many fighters show up at the actual ringside weighing more.)
The current middleweight champion, Jermain Taylor , won a controversial upset victory in 2005 over defending champion Bernard Hopkins , who had held the title since 1995.
Some notable middleweights have been:
- Harry Greb , arguablly the greatest of all the middleweights, and like Robinson, among the all-time greatest pound-for-pound
- Stanley Ketchel
- Charley Burley , who along with Archie Moore and Loyd Marshall was most notable among the Black Muderer's Row, Burley was renowned for his defensive skill
- Jake "Raging Bull" LaMotta
- "Marvelous" Marvin Hagler , who unified the title and defended it 12 times
- Carlos Monzon , who defended the title 14 times
- Bob Fitzsimmons , who was the first fighter - there have only been a handful since - to hold titles in three of the original eight divisions, this was his "natural" weight class
- Tony Zale
- Roy Jones Jr.
- James Toney
- Mickey Walker
- Gene Fullmer
- Dick Tiger
- Emile Griffith
- Sugar Ray Robinson , considered by many to be one of the best boxers pound for pound of all time
- Bernard Hopkins , who unified and defended the title a record 20 times,
- Rocky Graziano
- 1904 Charles Mayer , USA
- 1908 John Douglas , Great Britain
- 1920 Harry Mallin , Great Britain
- 1924 Harry Mallin, Great Britain
- 1928 Piero Toscani , Italy
- 1932 Carmen Barth , USA
- 1936 Jean Despeaux , France
- 1948 Laszlo Papp , Hungary
- 1952 Floyd Patterson , USA
- 1956 Gennady Schatkov , Soviet Union
- 1960 Edward Crook , USA
- 1964 Valeri Popenchenko , Soviet Union
- 1968 Christopher Finnegan , Great Britain
- 1972 Vyacheslav Lemeschev , Soviet Union
- 1976 Michael Spinks , USA
- 1980 Jose Gomez , Cuba
- 1984 Joon-Sup Shin , Republic Of Korea
- 1988 Henry Maske , East Germany
- 1992 Ariel Hernandez , Cuba
- 1996 Ariel Hernandez, Cuba
- 2000 Jorge Gutierrez , Cuba
- 2004 Gaydarbek Gaydarbekov , Russia
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