International Boxing Federation
| International Boxing Federation
IBF |
|
|---|---|
|
|
| sport | Boxing |
| Founded | 1983 |
| president |
 Daryl Peoples
|
| Association headquarters |
Springfield Township
|
| Homepage | official homepage |
The International Boxing Federation ( IBF ) is a boxing association that organizes official fights and awards the IBF world championship title in professional boxing. Along with the World Boxing Association (WBA), the World Boxing Organization (WBO) and the World Boxing Council (WBC), it is one of the four largest associations in professional boxing .
Foundation and first years
The IBF comes from the USBA (United States Boxing Association), a regional championship organization. In 1983, during an annual meeting in Puerto Rico , USBA President Bob Lee was defeated by Gilberto Mendoza in the election of WBA chairman . Lee and others resigned after the meeting and decided to build a new organization that would operate worldwide. At first the association was called IBF-USBA . New Jersey was chosen as the company's headquarters. The IBF is still there today.
The new organization's first world champion became Marvin Camel , a former WBC world cruiserweight champion. After the first year was difficult for the IBF, the association declared Larry Holmes , Aaron Pryor , Marvin Hagler and Donald Curry IBF world champions, even though they had already held titles in other organizations. Holmes gave up his WBC title to be recognized as an IBF world champion. This made the IBF the third major boxing organization at the time.
After the two rival associations WBC and WBA had reduced the duration of their world title bouts from 15 to 12 rounds in 1982 and 1987, respectively, the IBF held on to the 15-round distance until August 1988, when it also switched.
IBF founder Bob Lee goes to jail
In 1999 the association suffered a serious loss of image when the then President Bob Lee had to resign for illegal activities. The FBI began investigating in 1997 after Michael Moorer , on the basis of the RICO Act , had sued the IBF regarding the classification of Francois Botha after the Don King boxer was ranked number 1. In November 2001, charges were brought against Lee, his son, and IBF employee Bill Brennan. Lee Sr. was sentenced in 2001 to 22 months in prison for tax evasion and money laundering . Although the testimony of the then ratings officer Doug Beavers was clearly to the effect that promoters like Don King Lee had bribed, the jury did not recognize Lee's corruption . Lee refused to testify against King.
Bob Arum and Cedric Kushner admitted they bribed the IBF with US $ 100,000 each to give Axel Schulz a title fight against George Foreman .
Back to "normality"
As a result, Hiawatha Knight became the first woman president of a boxing association.
Don-King-Fighters like Raul Frank (welterweight) and Ross Thompson (light middleweight), who had not achieved anything athletically and did not appear in independent rankings, were promptly to be found in the ratings . The former judge Joe Dwyer was now responsible for the rankings.
In 2004, Knight was succeeded by Marian Muhammad , and Dwyer was fired.
Even now, Don King boxers like Ray Austin can be found in the top rankings without any comprehensible performance.
IBF title
- Asian Champion (IBF Asia Champion)
- African Champion (IBF Continental Africa Champion)
- Austral-Asian Champion (IBF Australasian Champion)
- Intercontinental Champion (IBF Inter-Continental Champion)
- International Champion (IBF International Champion)
- Youth World Champion (IBF Youth Champion)
- Latino Champion (IBF Latino Champion)
- Mediterranean Champion (IBF Mediterranean Champion)
- North American Champion (IBF North American Champion)
- East / West European Champion (IBF East / West Europe Champion)
- Pan Pacific Champion (IBF Pan Pacific Champion)
- Pan Pacific Youth Champion (IBF Pan Pacific Youth Champion)
- World Champion (IBF World Champion)
- United States Boxing Association (USBA)