International Boxing Union (since 1996) World Super Middleweight title fights of Scott "The Sandman" Pemberton and Omar Sheika that became ESPN2's "Fight of the Year" in 2003 and 2004. On 7 April 2012, 7-time multiple weight class World Champion James Toney captured the vacant IBU World Heavyweight championship with a TKO over World Heavyweight Bare Knuckle Championship Holder Bobby Gunn. International Boxing Union (since 1996) The International Boxing Union (IBU) is a professional boxing sanctioning body founded in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, in 1996. It is unrelated to the International Boxing Union, based in Europe, which operated until the Second World War. Although the IBU
Undisputed champion of coordinated bouts in 1986 and 1987, with Mike Tyson emerging as the first undisputed champion (WBC, WBA & IBF) since Leon Spinks in 1978. The title was split again in 1992 when Riddick Bowe forfeited the WBC title. Another major sanctioning body, the World Boxing Organisation, was established in 1988 in San Juan, Puerto Rico by a group of local businessmen. At the beginnings, when most of the challengers for WBA, WBC and IBF titles were Americans, WBO had a wider variety of countries, mainly European, represented in title bouts. Before the Klitschko Era, United Kingdom tied USA for