History of boxing in the Philippines

The history of boxing in the Philippines is the history of boxing and the evolution and progress of the sport in the Philippines. In the Philippines, boxing is considered a famous sport together with basketball, despite of the glories and honors it brought to the country, having produced Olympic standouts, professional world champions and some of the greatest fighters in the history of the sport. The Philippines has yet to win an Olympic gold medal but amateur boxing has given the country more medals in the Summer Olympics than any sport with 5 out of its 9 total medals. On the other hand, professional boxing have produced 40 major world champions (including those of Filipino heritage), one of the most in the world. Filipino greats like Pancho Villa, Flash Elorde and Ceferino Garcia are members of the two highly respected boxing hall of fames - International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF) and World Boxing Hall of Fame (WBHF). Thus, giving the Philippines the most number of boxing hall of fame members out of Asia.

Before the Spaniards and Americans came to the Philippines, Filipinos have their own kind of boxing known as Suntukan, which means "bare-hand fighting" in Tagalog, generally believed to have evolved from a Filipino knife fighting technique called "Kali". During the Spanish colonization, such martial arts and kind of fighting were banned, so it was driven in the undergrounds where the deprivation of knives and rattan sticks lead to fist fighting.

The evolution of Philippine boxing was thought to be after the Spanish–American War, where Spain ceded its colonial territories, namely Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States as agreed in the 1898 Treaty of Paris. Some reports told that American soldiers brought the modern boxing in the Philippines where evidences of a pair boxing gloves were made by Sol Levinson of San Francisco and another story telling that a renegade soldier brought some boxing gloves to Filipino prisoners and taught them how to use it. However, it was generally believed that three Americans were responsible for the evolution of boxing in the country namely: Frank Churchill and the Tait brothers (Eddie and Stewart) Eddie and Stewart Tait, also dubbed as "Barnums of Borneo", were amusement park entrepreneurs who established carnivals and horse racing tracks in Manila, who arrived in the country in 1902. Eddie, believed to be a boxing enthusiast, wanted to attract crowds by teaching Filipino locals some western boxing lessons for free to create American-style Filipino boxers.

...
Wikipedia