Boxing & Combat Sports Quiz — 10 Free Questions

Question 1

What is the name for the quick, straight punch thrown with the lead hand, used to measure distance, disrupt an opponent's rhythm and set up heavier shots, and generally regarded as the most important single tool in boxing?

Question 2

Which relentless, crouching heavyweight with a devastating left hook handed Muhammad Ali his first professional defeat in their 1971 meeting billed as the Fight of the Century, flooring him in the fifteenth round?

Question 3

Which Brazilian, nicknamed the Lioness, is widely regarded as the greatest woman in mixed martial arts history, having held the UFC bantamweight and featherweight titles at the same time and beaten a run of former champions including Ronda Rousey, Holly Holm and Miesha Tate?

Question 4

Which Mexican-American, nicknamed the Golden Boy after winning gold at the 1992 Olympics, won world titles in six weight divisions and was for a decade the sport's biggest pay-per-view attraction before losing to both Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao late in his career?

Question 5

By what name is the third and final fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier known, contested in 1975 in ferocious heat near the Philippine capital, and stopped by Frazier's corner after the fourteenth round with the champion also on the point of collapse?

Question 6

Which heavyweight boxer, born Cassius Clay, won the world title from Sonny Liston in 1964, converted to Islam and changed his name, then was stripped of the belt and banned for over three years for refusing to be drafted for the Vietnam War?

Question 7

Which red-haired Mexican became the undisputed super-middleweight champion in 2021 and the biggest star and pay-per-view draw in modern boxing, traditionally fighting on the weekends around Mexican national holidays in May and September?

Question 8

Which 1962 world welterweight title fight ended in tragedy when the champion collapsed under a barrage of punches in the twelfth round, fell into a coma and died ten days later, having taunted the challenger with a homophobic slur at the weigh-in?

Question 9

What is the nickname for the interruption to the 1993 world heavyweight rematch between Evander Holyfield and Riddick Bowe when a man flying a powered paraglider crashed into the ropes at ringside during the seventh round, halting the fight for about 20 minutes?

Question 10

Which American became the youngest UFC champion in history at 23, dominated the light-heavyweight division for a decade with an unorthodox arsenal including a straight kick to the opponent's lead knee, and later moved up to win the heavyweight title?

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About Boxing & Combat Sports

Fighting is the oldest sport there is, and this quiz covers its modern forms in eighty questions: boxing above all, but also mixed martial arts, wrestling, judo, sumo and the rest. Each describes a fighter, a bout, a weight class, a rule, a promotion, a discipline or a piece of jargon, and asks you to name it from four choices, then explains what it is and the record or the row attached to it.

The first pack is the essentials: the boxing giants Ali, Tyson, Marciano, Sugar Ray Robinson, Mayweather, Pacquiao, Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Leonard; the Rumble in the Jungle and the Thrilla in Manila; the knockout and technical knockout; the weight divisions; the Queensberry rules that brought in gloves; the punches; the split decision; and the founding of the UFC and of mixed martial arts.

The second pack widens out. More boxers, Frazier, Holyfield, Lennox Lewis, Duran, Hagler, Hearns, Chavez, De La Hoya, Hopkins, the Klitschkos, Canelo, Fury, Katie Taylor, Christy Martin, Lomachenko. The mixed martial artists McGregor, Khabib, Anderson Silva, Ronda Rousey, GSP, Jon Jones and Royce Gracie. The other combat sports, judo, sumo, Greco-Roman wrestling, professional wrestling, Muay Thai, taekwondo, fencing, kickboxing and kabaddi. And the furniture of the business, the Octagon, the promoter, pay-per-view and the Mecca of boxing at Madison Square Garden.

The third pack is history and infamy: the first Black heavyweight champion Jack Johnson; the Long Count and Jack Dempsey; the brain injury called being punch-drunk; Duran's 'no more' surrender; the rope-a-dope; the trainers Cus D'Amato and Angelo Dundee; the ring death of Benny Paret; the ancient event pankration; The Ring magazine; the bare-knuckle champion John L. Sullivan; the paraglider crash known as the Fan Man; the standing eight count; Prince Naseem Hamed; the tale of the tape; the tradition of megafight nicknames; the confusing interim title; the robbed Olympian Roy Jones Junior; and the Bite Fight.

Every answer is a single name, and the three wrong options are always names too, so the game is recognition rather than trivia recall: you match the description to the fighter, the belt, the venue or the rule. The explanations settle a few things fans get wrong. Rocky Marciano, not Floyd Mayweather, was the first heavyweight champion to retire unbeaten; Mayweather chose to stop at fifty wins to claim the record on paper. The Marquess of Queensberry did not write the rules that bear his name, John Graham Chambers did. Greco-Roman wrestling, despite the classical title, is a 19th-century French invention. Pro wrestling's scripted nature was an open secret for decades before the industry admitted it. And the ancient Greeks had a near-anything-goes ring sport, pankration, more than two thousand years before the UFC.

Because a photograph of a fighter almost always gives the answer away, images are used only where a neutral object or scene does not, and every figure and date has been checked.