5 Oldest World Champion Boxers To Step Into the Ring

Mike Tyson’s highly publicized bout against Jake Paul has inspired other aging boxing greats to seek their own high-profile paydays.

Mike Tyson is both one of the youngest world champions and one of the oldest former champions to contest a boxing match. / IMAGO / Inpho Photography

Mike Tyson's lucrative losing effort against Jake Paul has stirred a flurry of older boxers to seek their own payday against the “Blonde Bomber.” Former world champions like James Toney and Roy Jones Jr. are just a couple examples that have signaled interest in facing Jake Paul.

Separately, former heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko is considering a return to the ring this year. In particular, he has signaled an interest in a world title fight against either Daniel Dubois or Tyson Fury.

A Fury fight would be a rematch as the two first met in 2015. Klitschko turns 49 in March and wants to break the record set by George Foreman when he became the oldest man to regain the heavyweight title in 1995 at the age of 45. Foreman retired in 1998 at the age of 48. Though Foreman flirted with a comeback fight against David Tua in the early 2000s, that never materialized.

We have compiled a list of the oldest former champions to ever fight in a sanctioned match. For the purposes of this list, only former champions who had held one of the four widely recognized belts of this era—the WBA, WBC, IBF, and, more recently, the WBO—were included.

Saoul Mamby

Age: 60 years and 9 months

If you're looking for the oldest world champion to contest a world title look, you better call Saoul. Saoul Mamby of New York lost in his final sanctioned match against Anthony Osbourne at the Lions Centre in the Cayman Islands in March 2008. He is the only sexagenarian on our list of former champions.

Mamby had been a champion in the previous century. In February 1980, he knocked out Kim Sang-Hyun of South Korea in the 14th round to win the WBC lightweight belt. He would hold the belt for roughly two and a half years.

Mike Tyson

Age: 58 years, 138 days

IMAGO / Inpho Photography

Mike Tyson's fight against celebrity boxer Jake Paul at the AT&T Stadium in Dallas, Texas, was the sporting event of 2024. Some 72,300 total attendees gathered to witness the fight and over 100 million officially streamed the fight worldwide on Netflix, with many more illegally watching it as well. 

Despite being contested over eight rounds of just two minutes, the fight was formally sanctioned by Texas as an official about. Usually, two-minute rounds are only found in women's boxing, and using 14-ounce gloves is not customary in professional matches.

Decades earlier, Tyson became the youngest heavyweight boxer to hold a world title at just 19 and would become a two-time heavyweight champion.

Roy Jones Jr.

Age: 54 years and 75 Days

Roy Jones Jr. offers analysis on Mike Tyson's incredible force, warning Jake Paul before their long-awaited clash /

Roy Jones Jr. took on former UFC champion Anthony Pettis in 2023 in his last ring appearance in a sanctioned boxing match. The fight took place at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Pettis, a former lightweight champion, was making his boxing debut. However, Pettis was not new to the professional pain game. He is a former WEC and UFC Lightweight champion. He won a majority decision over Jones in the ten-round encounter.

Pettis was guaranteed $650,000 for the fight, while Roy Jones Jr. was guaranteed a slightly larger sum of $700,00. Jones is a former four-division boxing champion and would make much more in a battle against Jake Paul.

Larry Holmes

Age: 52 years, 123 days

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The Easton Assassin's final bout was on July 27, 2002 against Eric "Butterbean" Esch. The fight took place in Norfolk, Virginia.

Given his age, it was impressive for Holmes to dominate for ten complete rounds. It was perhaps more surprising that Esch went the complete ten rounds. Esch would never again fight ten-rounds in his 109-fight career as a boxer, probably because he dropped from 335 pounds (!) to a lean 334 pounds for the Holmes fight.

Larry Holmes was known as one of the most memorable heavyweight champions of his era who defeated a faded Muhammad Ali and was stopped in four rounds by Mike Tyson.

Bernard Hopkins

Age: 51 years, 337 days

IMAGO / Hoganphotos

Middleweight boxing legend Bernard Hopkins lost to Joe Smith Jr. on December 17, 2016. This is the only fight on this list that was a world title fight.

At the time, Joe Smith Jr. held the WBC International light heavyweight title. Smith Jr. had won the title in his previous fight and would lose it in his next fight after Bernard Hopkins against Sullivan Barrera.

The last dance for Bernard Hopkins took place at the Inglewood Forum in Inglewood, California. Smith knocked Hopkins out of the ring to win their bout by the eighth round. Two years earlier, in 2014, Hopkins had won the WBA (Super) light heavyweight title against Beibut Shumenov. In that same fight, he retained his IBF light heavyweight title, making him the oldest professional boxer ever to win a world title fight.