North American Boxing Federation
The North American Boxing Federation (NABF) is a regional organization in professional boxing founded in 1969 by the WBC World Association , which awards the title of "North American Champion". It is associated with the WBC, so that reigning NABF champions can often be found at the top of the WBC rankings and are listed as mandatory challengers for the WBC world championship.
The first fight of the NABF was on December 6, 1969 in Las Vegas , in the heavyweight division between Leotis Martin and Sonny Liston . Leotis Martin won the fight by knockout in round 9 and thus became the first NABF champion. In 1970, the first title fights in middleweight, lightweight, featherweight and bantamweight were held, in 1971 the light heavy, medium, world ter and super featherweight followed. The flyweight was added in 1973 and the light welterweight in 1976. In the following years, title fights were expanded to include super bantamweight (1977), cruiser and light flyweight (1979) and super middleweight (1988). It was not until 1990 that the super flyweight was added, and in 1998 the sparse straw weight was added, with which the NABF is currently fighting title fights in all weight classes of professional boxing.
The most famous title holders included Muhammad Ali , George Foreman , Wladimir Klitschko , Thomas Hearns , Sugar Ray Leonard , Yuriorkis Gamboa and Erik Morales .