The distance (boxing)

The distance, in boxing, refers to the full number of rounds in a match. It is frequently used in the expression "going the distance," which means fighting a full bout without being knocked out.

In title fights, this is called "the championship distance," which today usually means 15 rounds (See history section), though there were some ten-round championship matches. Non-title fights can be of any length under 12 rounds but are typically 10 rounds or fewer. Women's championship boxing is ten rounds or fewer, each round lasting 2 minutes instead of 3 for men.

In the early days of bare-knuckle boxing, there was no limit on the number of rounds and so matches would be fought to a conclusion (i.e. with a knockout or tap out). For example, the match between Simon Byrne and James 'Deaf' Burke in 1833 lasted 3¼ hours. Subsequently, laws and rules were passed to prevent such protracted bouts. When John L. Sullivan made boxing under Queensbury rules with gloved hands popular, his matches were of a pre-determined length and the referee would decide the winner if they went the distance. If a match reached the prescribed limit without a formal result then the result would be "no-decision", though one boxer might be considered the winner by popular acclaim—a "newspaper decision." To regulate such results better, official judges were appointed to award points so that a technical winner could be determined. For a period, titles in many US states could not be lost if the match went the distance.

For amateur boxing, the Amateur Boxing Association of England set rules for the length of a match when it was formed in 1880. Initially there were three rounds of 3 minutes with a break of 1 minute between them. Changes were made in 1926 and 1997 and most recently, in 2000, the International Boxing Association made it four rounds of two minutes each.

...
Wikipedia