International Boxing Organization
From Free net encyclopedia
The International Boxing Organization (IBO) is a sanctioning body for boxing that awards world championship belts in all weight classes. It was founded in 1993.
The IBO is considered by most boxing fans and experts to be a "fringe" sanctioning body and its champions are not widely recognized in most instances. However, it has gained some credibility in the past few years thanks to its use of an independent computer ranking system to determine top contenders and the participation of such star fighters such as Lennox Lewis and Roy Jones Jr. in IBO title fights. Some consider the IBO as the only serious boxing sanctioning body because the computer rankings it uses have recognized consensus champions like Lennox Lewis, who vacated the IBO title when he retired from boxing. The winner of the April 22 2006 fight between Wladimir Klitschko (brother of Vitali) and Chris Byrd in Mannheim, Germany, will become the new IBO Heavyweight Champion.