Heavyweight boxing championship records and statistics only universally recognized form of a world championship until July 2, 1921, when Jack Dempsey became the inaugural NBA Heavyweight Champion. The growing popularity of boxing led to a birth of various regional sanctioning organizations, with each recognizing their own champion. The major governing bodies were the National Boxing Association, formed in 1921, the New York State Athletic Commission, found after the Walker Law legalized prizefighting in New York in 1920, and the International Boxing Union, created in 1911 in Paris in attepmt create a unified international governing body for professional boxing. Both NBA and NYSAC made then-lineal champion Jack
Boxing in the 1950s and Floyd Patterson emerged as the youngest heavyweight champion in history (coincidentally, he beat Moore for the title left vacant by Marciano). Patterson remained the youngest heavyweight champion in history until November 22, 1986, when a 20-year-old Mike Tyson defeated the 31-year-old WBC Heavyweight Champion Trevor Berbick by TKO in round 2. The dark side of boxing once again emerged: Jake LaMotta alleged at a hearing that he had thrown a fight with Billy Fox in exchange for a try at the world Middleweight title, and Jim Norris, an important promoter of the time, was associated with Blinky Palermo and