Steve Cunningham

Steve Cunningham
Data
Birth Name	Steven Ormain Cunningham
Fight name	USS
Weight class	Cruiser weight
nationality	US-american
birthday	July 15, 1976
place of birth	Philadelphia
style	Left delivery
size	1.91 m
Combat Statistics
Struggles	39
Victories	29
Knockout victories	13
Defeats	9
draw	1

Steve Cunningham (* 15. July 1976 in Philadelphia , USA ) is an American professional boxer and former two-time IBF world champion in cruiserweight .

amateur

Steven Cunningham joined the US Navy at the age of 18 and served on the aircraft carriers USS America and USS Enterprise from 1994 to 1998 . At this time he also started boxing and played about 55 amateur fights. His greatest success was the victory at the national Golden Gloves tournament in 1998 in the light heavyweight division with a final victory against the amateur world champion Michael Simms .

Professional career

He won his professional debut on October 28, 2000 against Norman Jones. He then won 18 more fights in a row, including against the former IBO World Champion Sebastiaan Rothmann , the later WBA World Champion Guillermo Jones and the former IBF World Champion Kelvin Davis .

On November 25, 2006, he boxed in Warsaw for the first time for the IBF world title in cruiserweight, but lost the fight just on points against the Polish title holder Krzysztof Włodarczyk . However, he won the title in a direct rematch on May 26, 2007 in Katowice by majority decision on points, where he had his opponent on the ground.

He won his first title defense on December 29, 2007 in Bielefeld by TKO in the twelfth round against Marco Huck after Huck's coach Ulli Wegner had thrown in the towel. In his second title defense on December 11, 2008, he lost the belt, however, by a narrow point defeat to the Polish challenger Tomasz Adamek . Adamek was recognized by Ring Magazine as the number 1 cruiserweight after this fight .

By beating Wayne Braithwaite on July 11, 2009, he secured a new World Cup opportunity for the IBF. He boxed on June 5, 2010 in the Jahnsportforum of Neubrandenburg against the Canadian Troy Ross for the vacant world title and won by TKO in the fifth round. Cunningham was now also listed as number 1 by Ring Magazine. On February 12, 2011, he defeated the Serb Enad Licina unanimously on points in a title defense . The fight took place in Mülheim an der Ruhr .

On October 1, 2011, he lost the IBF title through a technical decision in Neubrandenburg to Yoan Pablo Hernández . Hernández had suffered a cut injury from an unintentional headbutt, which had led to the fight being abandoned and the score sheet being evaluated, on which he was just ahead. As a result of this result, a rematch was agreed and held on February 4, 2012 in Frankfurt am Main . Hernández won unanimously on points and had Cunningham twice on the ground.

On December 22, 2012, Cunningham also lost a rematch against Poland's Tomasz Adamek just on points. The duel took place in the heavyweight division and served to determine the number-2 placement of the IBF in this weight class. On April 20, 2013 Cunningham lost at Madison Square Garden by knockout in the seventh round against Tyson Fury and suffered the first premature loss of his career.

After beating undefeated opponents Amir Mansour (20-0) and Natu Visinia (10-0) in 2014 and winning the US heavyweight championship, he lost controversially on points against Ukrainian Vyacheslav Hlaskov on March 14, 2015 in Montreal . Five months later he boxed against Antonio Tarver , former WBA, WBC and IBF world light heavyweight champion, and reached a draw.

On April 16, 2016, Cunningham lost in the fight for the WBO world cruiserweight championship unanimously against Krzysztof Głowacki and was also four times on the ground. On August 26, 2017, he lost unanimously to Andrew Tabiti in the fight for the NABF title and the US cruiserweight championship.

List of professional fights

Web links

• Steve Cunningham in the BoxRec database

predecessor	Office	successor
Krzysztof Włodarczyk	Cruiserweight Boxing Champion ( IBF ) May 26, 2007 - December 11, 2008	Tomasz Adamek
Tomasz Adamek	Cruiserweight Boxing Champion ( IBF ) June 5, 2010 - October 1, 2011	Yoan Pablo Hernández