Boxing in the 2010s

Boxing in the 2010s includes notable events about boxing which occurred between 2010 and 2019. The decade saw high intensity action in the welterweight division. The match between veterans Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao broke PPV records. The broadcast of the fight in the Philippines was watched by nearly half the country's households. Mayweather retired at a record 50-0-0 while Pacquiao became the first eight division champion. The middleweight division saw immense action in the later years of the decade. After a draw in 2017, Canelo Alvarez ended Gennady Golovkin's long reign in 2018. The heavyweight division was dominated by Klitschko brothers before Wladimir's loss to Tyson Fury in 2015. Other talents that emerged were Anthony Joshua, Deontay Wilder and undisputed cruiserweight champion Oleksander Usyk.

Lists of notable fights and events by year

2010

January
* January 8 – Roman Karmazin knocks out Dionisio Miranda in the 10th round as part of an IBF middleweight title eliminator. This fight was later named the best middleweight fight of 2010 by ''Ring'' magazine.
* January 12 – Jermain Taylor withdraws from the Super Six World Boxing Classic, citing a need to reevaluate his career. Allan Green was made Taylor's replacement in the tournament.
* January 23 – Juan Manuel López knocks out Steven Luevano in the seventh round to become the WBO featherweight champion. This was López's debut at featherweight after vacating his former WBO junior featherweight title. The fight was Luevano's sixth attempt at defending the title.
February
* February 5 – Glen Johnson, at 41 years of age, knocks out Yusaf Mack – ranked as one of top ten light heavyweights in the world – in the sixth round.
* February 13 – Nonito Donaire knocks out Manuel Vargas in the third round to defend his interim WBA world super flyweight title.
March
* March 13 – Manny Pacquiao defeats Joshua Clottey, controlling the fight from start to finish and winning by unanimous decision. This was the first boxing match held at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, drawing more than 41,000 people. This was Pacquiao's first defense of his newly awarded WBO welterweight title.
* March 20 – Wladimir Klitschko knocks out Eddie Chambers with a fierce left to the temple with five seconds left in the fight. Chambers was knocked out nearly instantly, collapsing to the canvas and hanging off the last rope. This was Klitschko's first defense of his ''Ring'' magazine heavyweight title, his fourth defense of his WBO heavyweight title, and his eighth defense of his IBF and IBO heavyweight titles.
* March 27 – Arthur Abraham is disqualified in the 11th round, to lose to Andre Dirrell. In the fourth round, Abraham was down for the first time in his career, and he was cut over the right eyebrow in the seventh round. The fight was part of the second-group stage of the Super Six World Boxing Classic.
* March 27 – Erik Morales comes out of a nearly 32-month retirement to defeat José Alfaro by unanimous decision and win the WBC international welterweight title.
* March 27 – Pongsaklek Wonjongkam defeats Kōki Kameda by majority decision to win the WBC flyweight title and vacant ''Ring'' magazine flyweight title. This is the second time Wonjongkam has become the WBC flyweight champion, first winning the title in March 2001. Wonjongkam had defended the title 17 times before losing to Daisuke Naito in July 2007. This fight is later named the best flyweight fight of 2010 by ''Ring'' magazine.
* March 27 – In the co-main event of Wonjongkam/Kameda, Oleydong Sithsamerchai defeats Yasutaka Kuroki by a unanimous decision to retain his WBC strawweight title for the sixth time. This fight was later named the best strawweight fight of 2010 by ''Ring'' magazine.
April
* April 3 – Bernard Hopkins defeats Roy Jones Jr. by unanimous decision in a rematch of their May 1993 fight, in which Jones Jr. won the vacant IBF middleweight title. The fight itself got little attention from the boxing media, even though it had been anticipated for many years in the boxing community. Following the rematch, the fight was widely criticized for its heavy use of illegal blows and a skirmish at the end of the sixth round.
* April 3 – David Haye stops John Ruiz in the ninth round after knocking him down four times. This was Haye's first mandatory defense of his newly awarded WBA heavyweight title.
* April 10 – Evander Holyfield, at 47 years of age, knocks out Francois Botha in the eighth round to win the World Boxing Federation heavyweight title.
* April 10 – Andre Berto defeats Carlos Quintana via referee stoppage in the eighth round to retain his WBC welterweight title for the fourth time. This was Berto's first fight since taking a brief hiatus for nearly a year to help in earthquake relief efforts in Haiti as well as to handle personal and family losses from the earthquake. During the fight, Berto injured his left biceps.
* April 10 – Arthur Mercante dies at the age of 90.
* April 17 – Lucian Bute knocks out Edison Miranda with a hard left uppercut in the third round. This was Bute's fifth defense of his IBF super middleweight title.
* April 17 – Kelly Pavlik losses to Sergio Martínez in a close fight for Pavlik's WBC, WBO, and ''Ring'' magazine middleweight titles. Martínez controlled the early rounds with quick in and out movements, refusing to heavily engage with Pavlik. Martínez managed to cut Pavlik's left eyebrow in the first round. Pavlik then started to mount a comeback in the middle rounds by blocking Martínez's punches more effectively. Pavlik spent most of his time headhunting trying to land a hard right, which did help Pavlik get a knockdown in the seventh round. In the late rounds Martínez came back and started to open up Pavlik's cuts more, making his face extremely blood. In the post fight interview Pavlik said he couldn't see due to the blood. Martínez ended up winning the fight with a unanimous decision.
* April 19 – Edwin Valero commits suicide at the age of 28. On April 18, Valero was detained on suspicion of killing his 24-year-old wife. The following day, he was found dead in his prison cell, with a picture of his family in his mouth, having hanged himself using the denim pants he was wearing. Valero, who had two occasions where allegations of assault were placed on him in 2009 and 2010 was a subject of some inquiry on his mental health following a motorcycle crash he suffered in 2001.
* April 24 – Mikkel Kessler upsets Carl Froch by a unanimous decision to win Froch's WBC super middleweight title. The fight was part of the second-group stage of the Super Six World Boxing Classic. Following the fight, Froch complained about a judging bias, seeing how the fight was held in Kessler's country of origin, Denmark. This fight was later named the best super middleweight fight of 2010 by ''Ring'' magazine.
* April 24 – Tomasz Adamek defeats Chris Arreola by a majority decision. Arreola had his moments and held his own throughout the fight however Adamek had landed more clean punches and accurate combinations throughout the fight. This was Adamek's second defense of his IBF international heavyweight title. This fight was later named the best heavyweight fight of 2010 by ''Ring'' magazine.
* April 30 – In a stunning upset, Fernando Montiel knocks out Hozumi Hasegawa, ending his five-year, 10 title defense streak and taking his WBC bantamweight title. The knockout came as a surprise due to Hasegawa seeming to be clearly leading until the end of the fourth, when Montiel landed a left that stunned Hasegawa and pushed him back to the ropes, where he unloaded until the referee stopped the fight.
May
* May 1 – Floyd Mayweather Jr. defeats Shane Mosley to continue his undefeated career streak. Mosley came out strong for the first two rounds—at one point making Mayweather's knees buckle—but Mayweather went on to control the fight.
* May 8 – In a brief fight between Paul Williams and Kermit Cintrón, Cintrón falls out of the ring and is forced by doctors to stop fighting, giving Williams a win by technical decision.
* May 8 – Making his comeback after roughly 15½ months of being suspended, Antonio Margarito defeated Roberto Garcia to win the vacant WBC international super welterweight title.
* May 8 – In a rematch of a 2009 fight, Hugo Cázares defeated Nobuo Nashiro to win the WBA world super flyweight title. This fight is later named the best super flyweight fight of 2010 by ''Ring'' magazine.
* May 13 – Manny Pacquiao is officially proclaimed congressman of the lone district of Sarangani.
* May 15 – Amir Khan dominates Paul Malignaggi to win by TKO in the eleventh round and retain his WBA light welterweight title for the second time. This was Khan's debut in the United States.
* May 22 – In their fourth fight against each other Rafael Márquez evens the series to two wins for each man by stopping Israel Vázquez by TKO in the third round.
* May 29 – The WBO decides to strip Sergio Martínez of his middleweight title due to his unclear decision of what weight class he wants to fight in ( 160lbs or 154lbs). According to WBO bylaws no WBO champion may hold a non-WBO championship in a weight class that is different from the weight class of his WBO championship. Martínez never defended his WBO middleweight title and continued to hold the WBC and ''Ring'' magazine middleweight titles as well as the WBC light middleweight title.
June
* June 5 – Miguel Cotto defeats Yuri Foreman by ninth round stoppage due to a leg injury Foreman suffered during the fight. In an amazing display of will, Foreman refused to quit despite being in what he later called a "very sharp pain". A towel was thrown in the ring, but it was ruled to have come from an outside source, and the fight continued for another minute until being stopped officially. This was Cotto's debut at light middleweight. The fight was the first boxing match in the new Yankee stadium built in 2009, and the first match in either Yankee stadium since Ali/Norton 3 in 1976.
* June 19 – Andre Ward defeats Allan Green by unanimous decision. The fight was part of the second-group stage of the Super Six World Boxing Classic.
* June 26 – Julio César Chávez Jr. continues his undefeated streak and improves his record to 41–0 with one draw and one no contest, following a unanimous decision over John Duddy to win the WBC silver middleweight title.
* June 28 – Manny Pacquiao takes his oath of office as a congressman before Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio T. Carpio in the Provincial Capitol of Sarangani in Municipality of Alabel.
July
* July 10 – Juan Manuel López stops Bernabé Concepción in a second-round TKO to defend his newly awarded WBO featherweight title. The first round of this fight was later named round of the year by ''Ring'' magazine.
* July 31 – In a rematch of 2009's fight of the year, Juan Manuel Márquez defeats Juan Díaz for a second time to retain his WBO lightweight title and to win the WBA super world lightweight title.
* July 31 – On the undercard of Márquez/Díaz 2, top-10-ranked lightweight Robert Guerrero defeated Joel Casamayor.
August
* August 7 – Tavoris Cloud defeats Glen Johnson by a unanimous decision. This is Cloud's first defence of his newly awarded IBF light heavyweight title. This fight was later named the best light heavyweight fight of 2010 by ''Ring'' magazine.
* August 8 – Devon Alexander wins a decision over Andriy Kotelnyk.
* August 9 – Jay Larkin dies due to a brain tumor at the age of 59.
* August 14 – Jean Pascal upsets Chad Dawson by a technical decision due to an accidental headbutt that caused a major cut over Dawson's right eye and the fight was stopped by the ring side doctor. However Pascal easily won the fight according to the judge's scorecards. Pascal defended his WBC light heavyweight title for the third time, won Dawson's IBO light heavyweight title, and filled the vacant ''Ring'' magazine light heavyweight title.
* August 21 – Marco Huck defeats Matt Godfrey by fifth-round TKO, to defend his WBO junior heavyweight title for the fourth time.
* August 25 – Mikkel Kessler withdraws from the Super Six World Boxing Classic, citing an eye injury he suffered in his November 2009 fight against Andre Ward. 41-year-old Glen Johnson was made Kesslers's replacement in the tournament.
* August 28 – Giovanni Segura upsets Iván Calderón by a knockout in the eighth round to win the WBO and WBA super world light flyweight titles. Segura ends Calderón's undefeated 34-fight winning record. This fight would later be named both the best light flyweight and overall fight of the year of 2010 by ''Ring'' magazine.
September
* September 4 – Felix Sturm defeats Giovanni Lorenzo by a unanimous decision in his first fight in over a year.
* September 4 – Ricky Burns upsets previously undefeated Román Martínez to end his 24–0 winning streak and win the WBO super featherweight title. This fight is later named the best super featherweight fight of 2010 by ''Ring'' magazine.
* September 9 – Floyd Mayweather Jr. is questioned by police after a domestic battery charge is filed against him.
* September 10 – Floyd Mayweather Jr. is taken into custody but is released on $3,000 bail. Initially, Mayweather is only charged with felony theft.
* September 11 – Yuriorkis Gamboa defeats Orlando Salido to unified the WBA world and vacant IBF featherweight titles. Gamboa was knocked down in the eighth round and was docked two points in the twelfth round. While Salido was knocked down twice in the twelfth round.
* September 11 – Wladimir Klitschko defeats Samuel Peter for the second time, in a rematch of their September 2005 fight.
* September 16 – Floyd Mayweather Jr. receives two felony coercion charges and one felony robbery charge added to his felony theft that he received earlier in the week, along with one misdemeanor domestic battery charge and three misdemeanor harassment charges. Collectively, the eight charges leave Mayweather Jr. with potentially up to 34 years in prison.
* September 18 – Shane Mosley vs. Sergio Mora ends in a controversial draw.
* September 18 – Alexander Frenkel knocks out Enzo Maccarinelli in the seventh round to win the EBU cruiserweight title. This fight is later named the best cruiserweight fight of 2010 by ''Ring'' magazine.
October
* October 2 – Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym losses to Ryol Li Lee in a stunning upset. This was Kratingdaenggym's first loss since July 2006 against Volodymyr Sydorenko. This fight was later named the best super bantamweight fight of 2010 by ''Ring'' magazine.
* October 7 – Andre Dirrell withdraws from the Super Six World Boxing Classic, citing neurological issues. No one was needed to replace Dirrell in the tournament.
* October 15 – In his first fight in more than 16 months Antonio Tarver, former light heavyweight champion, returns as a heavyweight to defeat Nagy Aguilera.
* October 16 – Vitali Klitschko

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