Numbers of pro boxers and MMA fighters?

[WadCheber]

I know that there are way more pro boxers than pro MMA fighters, but I'm trying to get some actual numbers to work with.

Right now, Boxrec's rankings for active boxers contain 20,555 men and 1,186 women, a total of 21,741 boxers - "active" means "has had at least one bout in the past 365 days"; I assume all the boxers in the rankings are pros, but I don't know for sure.

I have seen a couple of quotes that suggest the UFC has about 300-400 fighters in its stable, but the UFC rankings contain 605 fighters. I don't know much about MMA, but I do know that UFC isn't the only organization in the business. The wiki page on the current Bellator roster shows 169 fighters. The page on the current WSOF roster has 94 fighters. Between those three, and assuming that there isn't any overlap between the rosters, there are 868 MMA fighters.

Questions:

1. Are all the boxers on Boxrec pros, or do the rankings also include amateurs? Are there a significant number of pros who aren't on Boxrec?

2. Does anyone know how many MMA fighters are in the other big organizations, and whether there is significant overlap between fighters from different MMA organizations? Like, if I look at the ranks of Bellator MMA, will I find that half of those fighters are also in the UFC?

3. What other organizations would count as "pro MMA fighters"?

4. More generally, can we make a ballpark estimate (preferably with some decent references) of how many pro MMA fighters there are in the world?

 

[Sharkey]

I can't remember who it was that did it, but a couple/few years ago somebody took up the task of totaling up the amount of active MMA fighters by using this site's fight finder and the number they came up with was just a little less than 4,000 from what I remember. Counting any unlisted fights and perhaps a slight improvement in the amount of participants since then I would guess the number to be around 5,000.

Boxrec is pros only and yes, there would also be a number of fighters and fights that are not listed on the site. They rely on their international correspondants for many fights, and while they certainly do an admirable job, the chances of them knowing/finding about them all (or having them reported) is quite remote. In the past Boxrec only listed active fighters who had fought in the past year. I don't visit the site much any more, but perhaps they are still doing so to this day? May account for a small percentage of current fighters who aren't considred "active" for one reason or another.

 

[WadCheber]

I can't remember who it was that did it, but a couple/few years ago somebody took up the task of totaling up the amount of active MMA fighters by using this site's fight finder and the number they came up with was just a little less than 4,000 from what I remember. Counting any unlisted fights and perhaps a slight improvement in the amount of participants since then I would guess the number to be around 5,000.

Boxrec is pros only and yes, there would also be a number of fighters and fights that are not listed on the site. They rely on their international correspondants for many fights, and while they certainly do an admirable job, the chances of them knowing/finding about them all (or having them reported) is quite remote. In the past Boxrec only listed active fighters who had fought in the past year. I don't visit the site much any more, but perhaps they are still doing so to this day? May account for a small percentage of current fighters who aren't considred "active" for one reason or another.

Yar, I used the Boxrec "active" rankings, which are limited to people who have fought in the last year.

So let's assume your estimate is a good ballpark, and there are about 5,000 active MMA fighters.

Boxrec lists about 22,000 active boxers. We should probably add some for those who are still active but haven't fought recently for whatever reason. We should probably add some more for the names that aren't on Boxrec. What would you say to a speculative estimate of 30,000 active pro boxers worldwide?

 

[Sharkey]

Yar, I used the Boxrec "active" rankings, which are limited to people who have fought in the last year.

So let's assume your estimate is a good ballpark, and there are about 5,000 active MMA fighters.

Boxrec lists about 22,000 active boxers. We should probably add some for those who are still active but haven't fought recently for whatever reason. We should probably add some more for the names that aren't on Boxrec. What would you say to a speculative estimate of 30,000 active pro boxers worldwide?

There may be 30,000 pro boxers. Perhaps. It's tough to say though with any certainty. But if I went with that number I'd also have to bump up the amount of MMA fighters a little as well to about 6,000 to correlate for the percentage increase in regards to unlisted fights for both sports. Is that math right?

 

[WadCheber]

There may be 30,000 pro boxers. Perhaps. It's tough to say though with any certainty. But if I went with that number I'd also have to bump up the amount of MMA fighters a little as well to about 6,000 to correlate for the percentage increase in regards to unlisted fights for both sports. Is that math right?

I'm a bit surprised that the difference is only 5:1, but I'm willing to take your opinion as a decent estimate.

 

[JackBigMac]

I'm a bit surprised that the difference is only 5:1, but I'm willing to take your opinion as a decent estimate.

This is a wildly wholesome conversation

 

[FightGuyOpenMind]

I don't think BoxRec is counting amateurs. I have never seen an amateur's record appear on the site. USA Boxing is the governing body for amateur boxing.

 

[FightGuyOpenMind]

"BoxRec or boxrec.com is a website dedicated to holding updated records of professional boxers, both male and female"
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoxRec)

There are a ton of amateur boxers. I would expect the number to be much higher if they were included.