Gennady Golovkin and Nigel Benn among boxing legends inducted into Hall of Fame
The International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF) Class of 2026 is packed to the brim with legends.
Gennady Golovkin, Nigel Benn and Antonio Tarver headline the modern men’s category, while Naoko Fujioka and Jackie Nava enter via the women’s category.
Gennady Golovkin
Golovkin (42-4-1) made it into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, days after being elected president of the new Olympic boxing body, World Boxing.
The Kazakh icon is a two-time unified middleweight world champion, and one of the finest 160lbers to ever grace the ring.
His 20 consecutive middleweight title defences are tied with Bernard Hopkins for the most in the history of the division.
Along the way, he defeated the likes of Kell Brook, Daniel Jacobs and David Lemieux en route to an iconic trilogy with Canelo Alvarez.
There is a strong argument to be made that he won their first two meetings, but the history books will forever read: one draw and two losses.
Nigel Benn
Benn (42-5-1) is one of the most beloved fighters to hail from British shores, and one of the finest.
‘The Dark Destroyer’ won world titles at middleweight and super middleweight during an all-action career that came to a close in 1996 following a pair of losses to Steve Collins.
Undoubtedly, his most famous rivalry was his bad-tempered bouts with Chris Eubank Sr in the early 1990s.
However, the fight that, for better or worse, defines his legacy is his clash with Gerald McClellan in 1995.
Benn was knocked out of the ring in the opening stanza and was down again in the eighth, but the Londoner rebounded to stop McClellan in round 10.
The American subsequently collapsed in the ring, fell into a coma and was never the same again.
Antonio Tarver
Tarver (31-6-1) stunned the boxing world in 2004 when he became the first man to legitimately beat the great Roy Jones Jr.
In doing so, he unified the WBA and WBC belts and became the man of the 175lbs weight class.
While he didn’t hold onto his world titles for long, notable victories over Montell Griffin, Glen Johnson, Reggie Johnson, and Jones Jr (twice) make Tarver a more than worthy inductee.
Naoko Fujioka
Fujioka (19-3-1) is Japan’s first-ever five-weight world champion, having reigned supreme over the minimumweight, junior-flyweight, flyweight, super flyweight and bantamweight divisions.
The ageless wonder turned over as a professional in 2009 at 34 years old and was nearing her 47th birthday when she had her WBA flyweight title snatched away from her by Marlen Esparza in her final bow.
Jackie Nava
Nava (40-4-4) is a former world champion at both bantamweight and super bantamweight.
The Mexican unified the WBA and WBC super bantamweight titles in 2014 with a victory over Sayda Mosquera and beat fellow female boxing legends Lisa Brown, Edith Matthysse and Yazmin Rivas.
Non-participant inductees
Outside of the boxers, there were several non-participant inductees, including legendary trainer and cutman Russ Anber, referee Frank Cappuccino, trainer and cutman Jimmy Glenn and physician Dr Edwin Homansky.
Esteemed journalist Kevin Iole and broadcaster Alex Wallau were included in the observer category, while Jimmy Clabby was honoured in the old timer category.
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