weight and super middleweight titles. He remained
the generally recognized light heavyweight cham-
pion for the rest of the decade and was named
Fighter of the Decade by the Boxing Writers Associa-
tion of America. Julio César Chávez of Mexico,
Pernell “Sweet Pea” Whitaker, and Oscar De La
Hoya also held superstar status during the decade.
Chávez, who held versions of the super feather-
weight and lightweight championships during the
1980’s, dominated the light welterweight division
during the early 1990’s. His bout with Meldrick Tay-
lor on March 17, 1990, in which he stopped Taylor
with two seconds left in the final round, was one of
the decade’s most exciting and controversial battles.
Whitaker began the decade as the generally recog-
nized lightweight champion and won the IBF light
welterweight title in 1992 and the WBC welterweight
title in 1993, holding the latter until losing it to a
younger and stronger Oscar De La Hoya in 1997. De
La Hoya, the youngest of the three, began his profes-
sional career in 1992 and won his first title at super
featherweight and lightweight in 1994. In 1996, he
won the WBC light welterweight title from Chávez
and the following year the welterweight title from
Whitaker. He remained a dominant figure in the
welterweight division until September, 1999, when
he lost by decision to Felix Trinidad of Puerto Rico.
De La Hoya, nicknamed the “Golden Boy,” was
namedThe Ringmagazine’s Fighter of the Year in
1995 and its best pound-for-pound fighter in 1997
and would continue his career in the super welter-
weight/light middleweight division in the decade
that followed. In the second half of the 1990’s, a new
generation of boxers—including De La Hoya and
Trinidad, Lennox Lewis at heavyweight, Bernard
Hopkins at middleweight, and Shane Mosley at
lightweight—gradually replaced the top fighters of
the earlier part of the decade.
Boxing’s lightest weight divisions also produced
fighters who became well known in the United States
during the decade. Among the best known was
Phoenix-born Michael Carbajal, who won the IBF ju-
nior flyweight title in July, 1990, and went on to fight
a celebrated three-fight series with WBC titleholder
Humberto González of Mexico. The first Carbajal-
González fight—held in March, 1993, and won by
Carbajal by a seventh-round knockout—was the first
fight in that weight class to headline a U.S. pay-per-
view boxing card.
Other Aspects of the Sport Boxing saw its share of
ring tragedies during the 1990’s. British middle-
weight Michael Watson was seriously injured in a
bout with fellow British fighter Chris Eubank in- While Watson made at least a partial recovery
from his injuries, the same was not true of American
middleweight Gerald McClellan. McClellan, who
had captured the World Boxing Organization
(WBO) middleweight championship in 1991 and
the WBC middleweight title in 1993, suffered a se-
vere brain injury in a fight against British boxer
Nigel Benn in 1995. Although he survived, McClellan
remained permanently mentally and physically im-
paired.
The 1990’s also saw the growing acceptance of
women in the sport. Christy Martin, who began her
boxing career in 1989, became the best-known fe-
male boxer in the United States during the decade.
After winning the WBC women’s junior welter-
weight title in 1993, she defended the title numer-
ous times before finally losing it to Sumya Anani in - Martin was promoted during her career by
well-known boxing promoter Don King and was fea-
tured on the cover ofSports Illustratedin 1996. Martin
set the stage for female boxing superstar Laila Ali,
daughter of former heavyweight champion Muham-
mad Ali, who fought her first professional bout in
October, 1999.
Impact Although by the 1990’s professional box-
ing no longer enjoyed the lofty status it once had as a
sport in American culture, it continued to produce
popular fighters and big-money fights. While the
heavyweight division continued as the sport’s pre-
mier division, there were popular fighters and fights
in all of its weight classes during the decade. During
this time period, boxing also opened its doors for
the first time to women who sought to compete in
what had previously been an all-male sport.
Further Reading
Finger, David E.Rocky Lives! Heavyweight Boxing Up-
sets of the 1990’s. Washington, D.C.: Potomac
Books, 2005. Covers several of the top heavy-
weight bouts of the decade, as well as numerous
bouts involving lower-level performers.
Kawakami, Tim.Golden Boy: The Fame, Money, and
Myster y of Oscar De La Hoya.Kansas City, Mo.: An-
drews McMeel, 1999. Biography of one of the de-
cade’s elite fighters, who also engaged in bouts
with several of the era’s other top fighters, includ-
116 Boxing The Nineties in America