Boxers that retired as champions/belt holders

[BKM-2010]

Aside from the obvious famous ones, can you name some more? I think the lack of examples is a sign of how hard it is for fighters to walk away from the sport especially when they're in lucrative positions like having a belt.

[greeh]

Marcel immediately comes to mind, as does Accavallo. I don’t know if you classify him as “too famous? but didn’t Carbajal retire with some sort of trinket? Some IBF/WBO shyte against Arce? If you count deaths then Ohba is another one. Hmmm……. Oh yes, Khaosai for **** sake, but he certainly had/has some rabid supporters and might be deemed too famous. I have a vague memory of Duilio Loi retiring with a belt as well.

That's everyone off the top of my head, excluding the obvious ones such as Lopez, Marciano, Calzaghe and so on.

Pure speculation this one and he didn’t pull it off, but if Chang hadn’t gotten financial troubles I think he would be amongst this group. Such a shame that he didn’t get the victory he deserved against Chitalada, or avoided getting caught by Kittikasem in the final round. Otherwise he had probably retired as the Champ?

Or maybe he would've decided to continue, managed to defend the title in what would be a trilogy against Sot or a rematch with Kittikasem before getting his skull caved in brutally by Arbachakov in ?2.

[Ray Corso]

Ricardo Lopez.... 53-0

[IronDanHamza]

Ricardo Lopez.... 53-0

He retired 51-0

[IronDanHamza]

Terry Marsh.

Forgotten champion.

Short career but retired a Champion.

[Anthony342]

He retired 51-0

51-0-1 to be exact. So we got Lopez, Calzaghe, Louis in his first retirement, Lennox Lewis, Marciano, Terry Marsh, Sven Ottke, Paul Williams had the WBC International Silver Middleweight Title when his career ended, so I guess you can count him as well.

Holyfield had some minor title belt at the end of his career and Roy Jones has some European minor trinket currently at almost age 46.

Used to be you figured by mid '30s to 40 these guys would retire, now we have to wait until they're at or pushing 50. Until more recently, I only knew of Roberto Duran who was 50 when he had his last career fight and Larry Holmes who was 52 in his last bout. Now we have Hopkins about to turn 50 so hopefully he'll hang them up soon.

[The Iron Man]

Both Jeffries and Gene Tunney retired as champion, although Jeffries came back to fight.

[TBear]

South African Brian Mitchell was one.

[Hitman Hodgson]

Johnny Nelson.

[BattlingNelson]

Not mentioned: Vitali Klitschko, Johnny Bredahl. Edwin Valero (RIP) doesn't or probably shouldn't count.