The distance (boxing) 19, 1987. While the International Boxing Federation, which had recently broken away from the WBA, continued to hold onto the position there was no documented medical evidence to show a 15-round fight is more dangerous than a 12-round fight, they eventually voted to shorten their championship distance to 12 rounds as well on June 3, 1988. The last heavyweight 15-rounder title fight was on October 16, 1987 between Mike Tyson and Tyrell Biggs. The last middleweight 15-rounder title fight was a World Boxing Board title match on June 7, 1997 in which Jose Alfredo Flores won a split decision over
The distance (boxing) Changes were made in 1926 and 1997 and most recently, in 2000, the International Boxing Association made it four rounds of two minutes each. In professional boxing, until the 1980s, the "championship distance" generally referred to the title rounds that numbered between 13 and 15. For decades, the last heavyweight title match scheduled for less than 15 rounds had been the September 22, 1927 10-rounder between Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey; from then, the only bout that was not scheduled for 15 rounds had been a "scheduled" 20-rounder between Joe Louis and Abe Simon on March 21, 1941. This changed