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"The punch is mightier than the sword!"

In general parlance, boxing is a combat sport where two fighters square off in fisticuffs. However, once in a while writers remember that boxing is considered a martial art and it is used as a fighter's style of choice outside the ring. In these cases, boxing techniques and skills will be presented as every bit as valid as any other martial art, Red Boxing Gloves optional, depending on the seriousness of the work.

Generally an Extremity Extremist, since traditionally boxing has no kicks. Expect Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs if the fighter is sufficiently strong. Compare Good Old Fisticuffs, which is about untrained fighters are equal to trained martial artists (and they'll generally use some boxing moves, as it's the most "accessible" martial art for them to witness).

A subtrope of Bare-Fisted Monk. Technically a subtrope of I Know Madden Kombat assuming the character was trained in boxing for sport.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Aoki Densetsu Shoot: The goalkeeper of Fujita East High School uses boxing techniques to defend the goal. But since he's taking a boxing stance, this makes him susceptible to tunneling balls.
  • Star Upper, a Toyless Toyline Character from Beast Wars II turns into a kangaroo and is skilled at boxing in both modes, being an intergalactic champion.
  • Ichirō "Alex Rodriguez" Shinjō from Beelzebub is one of the six Rokkisei in Saint Ishiyama Acadamy and the club president of the boxing club.
  • This is how Dante from Black Clover fights bare-handed. His unarmed spell "Heavy Infighting" comes from the boxing term for getting close to an opponent.
  • Interesting manga example from Black God is Kuro. Kuro, a Mototsumitama, is often frowned upon for using boxing, a human fighting style, when she fights. Which is funny because she usually wins.
  • Captain Tsubasa: As part of his rehabilitation, Genzo Wakabayashi trains boxing techniques to counter Stefan Levin's shots, which has previously injured his hands in the Bundesliga.
  • Minai from Corpse Princess. In the DVD exclusive prequel episode, when Minai is asked if she has any fighting skills after becoming a Shikabane Hime, she says she knows some boxing, which becomes her fighting style against Shikabane.
  • Alex Louis Armstrong, also known as "the Strongarm Alchemist" from Fullmetal Alchemist uses a form of fisticuffs passed down his family (FOR GENERATIONS!) with a side order of alchemy.
  • Chibodee Crocket from G Gundam uses a mishmash of "American" techniques and weapons, but his primary fighting style is boxing based. In fact, his Gundam can eject its football shoulder pads and attach them to its fists to boost its punching power.
  • Yuu from Holyland starts out using boxing because it was the first thing he picked up. While he moves away from pure boxing as the story goes on, the boxing cross remains his best weapon, and he later takes lessons from an amateur boxer to improve his skills.
    • Yamazaki is a skilled fighter that uses boxing techniques. Justified in that he's actually a boxer, the champion from the club at Yuu's school and one of the best in the entire prefecture, who at one point picked a fight with Yuu to prove a point and gave him a hell of a fight before losing to his kicks. Even then, and in spite of having trouble adapting to street fights, his technique is considered top-notch, with Yuu talking him into giving him lessons.
    • Subverted with Izawa: at first everyone thinks he's a boxer, but during his first fight with Yuu he's revealed to have started in Karate, and he just never had occasion or reason to break out anything but boxing techniques on-page until then.
  • Ikki Takeda "The Puncher" in Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple is a boxer who frequently matches up with martial artists. Although he twice lost matches against Kenichi, the first match he was only using one hand, and the second match was stopped by his trainer. He later does much of his training in the underground fighting rings, where he goes against people of all sorts of fighting styles and wins with his fists.
  • In Kengan Ashura, Gaolong Wongsawat is the heavyweight boxing champion of the world and averts the typical habit of boxers being jobbers in Martial Arts stories by being a powerhouse capable of shocking agility. Even then, his primary fighting style is actually Muay Thai and he took up boxing to compensate for its lack of punches.
  • In Kill la Kill, Takaharu Fukuroda has a boxing gimmick, augmented by his uniform that gives him incredible Super-Strength and Super-Speed and his metal Power Fists. However, he's not above using kicks in a pinch, and his metal gloves can sprout spikes.
  • Lyrical Nanoha: While she was originally a more rounded fighter in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid, Vivio adopted a pure boxing style by the time of ViVid Strike! (complete with Hajime no Ippo Shout Outs in favour of Ken Masters shout-outs).
  • One Piece:
    • Franky is a Cyborg whose enhancements run on cola. However, he will resort to boxing techniques (called "Franky Boxing!") when he's out of cola, thus without his strongest weapons.
    • Foxy generally fights with boxing style, with spiked boxing gloves. Although he's known to use dirty tactics whenever he's got a chance.
    • Ideo, King Elizabello II, and Kelly Funk from the Corrida Colosseum. Special mention to Elizabello and his King Üunch. It's said to be sufficient to bring down a Yonkou, but he can only use it once per hour and is largely helpless while he's building up the momentum to perform it. He can, however, fire it off early at the cost of reduced power.
  • Ryoko, protagonist of Ōkami-san, uses boxing techniques and even has a pair of electrified boxing gloves
  • In Rat Man, the titular character initially relies solely on being Unskilled, but Strong, before later realising that he needs to actually learn how to fight to deal with his opponents that are equally strong or stronger. So he started training in boxing to develop actual fighting skills.
  • In Rurouni Kenshin, Saito Hajime is a swordsman but fights like a professional boxer when barehanded. This allows him to wipe the floor with Sanosuke Sagara, who learned to fight in the streets and is normally able to defeat martial artists with Good Old Fisticuffs.
  • In Sengoku Youko, Douren is a Boisterous Bruiser monk who came across a manual on Western boxing techniques and discovered that they were a perfect fit for his fighting style, enabling him to dodge attacks from Unskilled, but Strong enemies and strike back when they present an opening. In the present day, Douren is the World's Best Warrior and refers to boxing as "the ultimate martial art".
  • The protagonist Inui Date in Shinjuku D×D practices boxing and uses it to defend himself against anybody who wants to fight him.
  • Ichise from Texhnolyze. Given that he's a prizefighter, it makes sense that his fighting style consists of boxing techniques.
  • YuYu Hakusho: Murota is a bit character who gains the ability to read minds at one point. He uses the powers to become a successful boxer, but also cleans the floor with some of Yusuke's allies using boxing moves. He then tries the same with Yusuke, who's so fast Murota can't dodge his attacks even with Yusuke telling him how, where, and when he'll attack and so strong he can punch him out with the shockwave of a punch he's holding back.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL has Alito, one of the Seven Barian Emperors, whose signature "Battlin' Boxer" monsters fit this archetype. He also fights like a boxer himself.
  • Ted from Zatch Bell! fights using a style very similar to boxing, though it's never outright stated and uses the same footwork as it does as well, never using his feet to attack in any battles he was in.

    Comic Books 
  • Black Hammer: Abraham Slam is a non-superpowered hero who fights crime with his world-class boxing skills.
  • The DCU:
    • Batman is noted to include boxing among the 127 styles of martial arts he is a master of. Not that surprising, since one of his mentors in hand-to-hand combat was the below-mentioned Wildcat. As this article notes, Batman's use of boxing was even more pronounced in his golden age appearances, where it seemed to be his primary striking style.
    • Wildcat from the Justice Society of America uses no weapons and was a Badass Normal until a Retcon slowed his aging. He's just a champion boxer who fights crime in a cat mask. And is one of the many combat instructors of a young, pre-Batman, Bruce Wayne.
    • Kate Kane's dad taught her to box, and she was a boxer during her time at West Point, with evidence she even won a school championship. Flashbacks to her Batwoman training depict her continuing to learn that style.
    • Like her main universe counterpart, the DC Bombshells version of Kate Kane was also an amateur boxer for a time, as evidenced by a photo in her apartment.
  • Diabolik has a couple examples:
    • Whenever forced to fight hand-to-hand, Ginko resorts to his fists. He's so good that most opponents go down with one shot, and the rare times he has fought Diabolik unarmed his fists tended to overcome his sophisticated martial arts.
      • On one memorable occasion, Ginko had been captured by a gang but managed to free himself and started sneaking around, punching out any Mook he saw with one hit. One of the guys he took down was Diabolik, uppercutted into unconsciousness before he could notice Ginko-or Ginko could recognize him.
    • One-shot character Big Bolt was a former boxer, who could have been the world champion if the mob hadn't ruined his leg for not taking a dive, a task that required a dozen Mooks-most of which had to be hospitalized afterwards. Ginko mentioned he was his childhood hero, having been taken by his father to watch one of his matches, and Diabolik, after meeting him in his old age, had to admit his fist was too fast to see, and described being punched by him as "Then I was hit by a freight train or something".
  • Marvel Universe
    • The Champion of the Universe, a cosmic-level entity, knows many fighting styles and has access to the Power Eternal. Despite this, he used the power primarily to hone his body to physical perfection (as opposed to other wielders of the power who use energy blasts or more creative uses) and chooses to go from planet to planet, challenging the best of the planet to boxing matches with the fate of the planet on the line should he win.
    • Daredevil's fighting style is described by Danny Rand as "old-school jujutsu— with a little New York Irish Boxer thrown in for good measure." Makes sense, considering Daredevil's father was a professional boxer.
    • Moon Knight had a stint as a heavyweight boxer in his youth. While he learned many other styles throughout his later careers as a soldier, mercenary, and costumed hero, his hard-hitting brawling style of combat still brings to mind a prize-fighter. Emphasized by his occasional use of spiked cestus (the ancient precursor to boxing gloves).
    • In addition to being a Flying Brick, America Chavez is a trained boxer.
    • Maya Lopez, AKA Echo, was a natural at it when she first started learning martial arts, even when accounting for her "photographic reflex" ability. When she was still associated with Kingpin, she regularly competed in unsanctioned boxing matches.

    Fan Works 
  • In the remake of the Battle Fantasia Project, Sailor Venus and Tuxedo Kamen and the magical girls taught by them tend to prefer boxing in melee combat. Justified for Tuxedo Kamen as he's said to have been a boxing champion in middle school (as a nod to him being often compared to Batman, who, as noted above, relied mainly on that during the Golden Age), and for everyone due the simple fact they tend to fight outnumbered, a situation where kicking means a possibly suicidal loss of mobility in-fact Sailor Venus' actual primary striking style is Savate, but she reserves kicks only for one-on-one fights, looking more like a boxer than a savateur.
  • Wheeljack's fighting style in TFA Kaleidoscope is heavily rooted in boxing. He even comments that he used to be a boxer back on Cybertron.
  • Vow of Nudity: Walburt is a gladiator who fights exclusively with punches and grapples.

    Film — Animation 
  • Batman: Gotham by Gaslight: Batman and Jack the Ripper both fight like boxers, with the Ripper commenting he was an amateur champion in his younger years. Notably, the Ripper is actually a superior fighter to Batman, who only defeats him in the end by exploiting the environment.

    Film — Live-Action 
  • In Black Knight (2001), Jamal uses boxing moves to defeat three medieval bullies, who were quite strong but clearly didn't know how to fight, and were confused by Jamal's stances and footwork.
  • Fearless (2006): Jet Li's character faces off against representatives of three separate fighting styles; among them is a British boxer, though he gets easily defeated by Jet Li's kung fu.
  • Ip Man
    • Twister from Ip Man 2 is the British boxing champion. He manages to beat an extremely skilled martial artist to death in a match, despite the fact that the martial artist was allowed to use kicks and throws, while Twister only used punches and was still wearing his boxing gloves. He even nearly defeated the titular Ip Man, who bordered on Invincible Hero.
    • In Ip Man 3, Frank, played by Mike Tyson, also fights like a boxer, but sprinkles in kicks and wrestling moves from time to time so Ip Man can't exploit stance and grapple technique illegal in boxing. He was able to fight Ip Man to a draw.
  • Happy Hogan in Iron Man 2 spends a couple rounds in the ring early on. Much later, he uses the same skills to take down a mook. While Black Widow takes out all the rest.
  • In The Man from Kangaroo, Badass Preacher John Harland is a former middleweight boxing champion and uses his boxing skill to lay down the law at several points, taking in a variety of criminals.
  • Raiders of the Lost Ark has a Nazi soldier try to box with Indy. Indy does not even try to fight him; waiting for the running airplane propeller instead.
  • In Sherlock: Case of Evil, Dr. Watson proves himself quite adept in a Bar Brawl, which he chalks up to having boxed for Cambridge.
  • In Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, the villain Professor Moriarty is described as the former boxing champion of Cambridge University and mainly uses boxing techniques during the climactic fight scene, in contrast to Holmes' hybrid-Bartitsu-esque style.
  • In Super Troopers, when the troopers get in a brawl with the Corrupt Cops, Chief O'Hagen knocks out the head bad guy, then remarks that he was a boxing champ in the Navy.
  • George Chambers in Undisputed II: Last Man Standing is a former heavyweight boxing champion thrust into prison vale tudo fighting. Despite his handicap, he's actually able to hold his own in his first fight against the "complete fighter" Yuri Boyka before being drugged and knocked out.

    Literature 
  • Aftermath: Life Debt establishes that Grand Admiral Rae Sloane competed in NCB, or Naval Corps Boxing, during her cadet days in the Imperial Navy, and always ranked highly despite never winning a championship. In the present day, she's still quite skilled at it.
  • Quite a few characters in Kameron Hurley's Bel Dame Apocrypha trilogy, including the protagonist, Nyx, are trained competitive boxers since boxing (which is much more brutal in that world than our own) is popular and a decent way to make some money. May be Author Appeal, since Hurley trained as a boxer.
  • The protagonists of Louis L'Amour's works are often trained in boxing (a suspicious number by the frequently name-dropped real-world boxer Jem Mace) and tend to find themselves up against fighters who use less scientific methods or had been used to simply relying on size and strength to beat weaker opponents. L'Amour himself was a professional boxer when he was younger.
  • Several hares in the Literature/{{Redwall}] books are boxers: Sergeant Wonwill in Rakkety Tam, Maudie Thropple in Eulalia! and Stiffener Medick and his grandsons Southpaw and Bobweave in Lord Brocktree are all boxing hares.
  • Sherlock Holmes is a classically-trained boxer, as well as a student of other disciplines such as singlestick and jiu-jitsu.

    Live-Action TV 
  • In The Doctor Blake Mysteries, Lucien Blake displays some serious pugilistic talent. When he squares off against a local thug in "An Invincible Summer", he drops into a stance that shows he has had proper boxing training and takes down his opponent, who is much bigger and heavier. In The Boxing Episode "A Lethal Combination", Jean asks him if he is tempted to pull the gloves on again.
  • Doctor Who:
    • The First Doctor, a gray-haired old man beats a Roman assassin this way, then mentions how he used to be a boxing coach.
    • The Third Doctor was quite a boxer too, claiming to have gotten pointers from John L. Sullivan himself.
  • The Wire: When ex-con Cutty decides to open up a boxing gym for at-risk youth, he doesn't get any traction until he takes to the streets and shows a few corner hoppers how to fight using boxing techniques. That sparks an interest in his gym, though he has to make it clear that boxing is for sport, not street fighting.
  • Sage from The Vampire Diaries ran a boxing tent during the 1910s in which she offered a cash prize to any man who could beat her in a match.

    Pro Wrestling 
  • Brock Lesnar did this to Braun Strowman when the latter kneed him in the face, causing the former to lash out with a 1-2 punch.
  • Marvelous Marc Mero (formerly known as "Johnny B. Badd") used a boxing gimmick as a professional wrestler in the WWF. He came to the ring in boxing trunks rather than Underwear of Power and used boxing moves (albeit bare-knuckle) when he could.
  • While Rodney Mack was a shoot fighter who turned to mixed martial arts, his manager Theodore Long described him as one of these during their race baiting "white boy challenges" in WWE. His wife Jazz would also adopt a jab combo.
    Teddy Long: "You got to box like Rodney Mack, knock the white boy out!"
  • Consequences Creed from TNA fought like this.
  • The Undertaker from time to time. Mark Calaway is a big MMA fan with a few sources noting him to have his black belt in Karate & BJJ, but he also sometimes uses boxing stance in the ring, even getting dubbed WWE's best pure striker during his American Badass years. This stuck even after he went back to being The Deadman, which showed best in his fight against Mark Henry & Viscera in 2007.
  • Elijah Burke aka D'Angelo Dinero was a former boxer. In his wrestling matches, he often uses punch combos and is fast enough to do Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs for real.
  • Tara would take to boxing for her comebacks after her Heel–Face Turn in TNA.
  • IWA PR and WWC wrestler El Chico Illegal Chicano is a member of the famous (at least in the Caribbean) Cotto family which includes at least one world champion of four divisions in Miguel and two Pan American medalists in José and Abner. He himself has graduated from amateur to pro boxer after becoming a pro wrestler(he was forced to by Federacion Puertorriquena de Boxeo Aficionado), where he established an 8-1-1 record, so when he began incorporating boxing into his wrestling matches in 2015 in an effort to win the WWC Universal Title, no one was surprised.
  • Celtic Championship Wrestling in Ireland has Marion Armstrong — who calls himself "Mr. Knockout". He wrestles primarily with bare-knuckle boxing moves and occasionally wears the traditional robe to the ring.

    Tabletop Games 
  • GURPS has Boxing as one of the unarmed combat skills. While it's much more specialized than Brawling and Karate with punches being the only attack, it's cheaper than the latter while having a better damage and defense bonus than the former offers
  • The New World of Darkness has this as one of the basic fighting styles, (a series of Merits that relate to a single way of fighting) allowing for haymakers, body, and combination blows, better dodging ability and even one-hit KOs and channeling your willpower into Lethal (very heavy) Damage. You can even mix in grapples and dirty moves if you spread your points out.
  • Villains & Vigilantes adventure There's a Crisis at Crusader Citadel. The Shrew (Sheila Brewster) was a member of the Crushers supervillain team. She was a former boxer who used her boxing skills in combat against superheroes.

    Video Games 
  • Art of Fighting has Mickey Rogers, a former boxing champion who lost his career after he accidentally killed a man in the ring. Despite this, he isn't limited to punches, thanks to his "Burning Upper" and "Rolling Upper" projectile attacks; giving him a play style similar to Sagat.
  • Makoto Nanaya from BlazBlue has this as her fighting style. Being superhumanly strong helps, though she is one of the least empowered characters in the series.
  • Yugo Ohgami, from Bloody Roar, is a professional boxer, who also uses martial arts and street fighting. This makes him more of an MMA-style character, though boxing is his primary means of attack.
  • Body Blows: Junior is a boxer who has a background similar to that of Street Fighter's Balrog. However, this British Boxer differs in that he didn't turn to criminal activity following his ban from boxing and instead looked for a new fighting circuit to prove himself in skill and honor.
  • Cruz Brothers: The brothers are fight clubbers with inspiration to get in a real boxing ring. Every character aside from the Boxing club (a Fight Club shout-out) and the Sons of Subversion refers from using kicks and use basic boxing moves.
  • Power stance while Dual Wielding Caestus in Dark Souls II takes you from a semi-clumsy and very impractical Good Old Fisticuffs style of slow, telegraphed crosses to a much faster and smoother one-two punch.
  • In Eternal Fighter Zero, Kaori Misaka has this as her fighting style, as she relies on punches, very fast footwork, and evasion techniques; she's like a combination of Dudley from Street Fighter III with Vanessa from The King of Fighters.
  • Real Bout Fatal Fury 2: The Newcomers gives us Rick Strowd, a champion Native American lightweight prizefighter (and former casino boxer) with some pretty wild and acrobatic maneuvers. He was in the running for a spot on the KOF '99 roster but lost out to fellow newcomer Li Xiangfei. Rick's electric moveset has since been partially assimilated by the aforementioned Vanessa, who in 2002 has access to his Hellion special and even uses his Gaia Gear P-Power as a HSDM.
  • Fear & Hunger: Termina: Having been a boxer through his whole life, Marcoh's fists strike twice and do more damage, and he can learn the bare-fisted proficiency to improve unarmed accuracy. His other skills are also tied to his experience in boxing, such as bobbing and weaving.
  • Duke Wriothesley, from Genshin Impact, is a Cryo catalyst user, but rather than fight with projectiles like other catalyst characters, prefers to augment his boxing skills with his Vision, fighting with boxing moves and a pair of gauntlets. His skill set is even a reference to a boxing move, focusing on manipulating his HP to increase his strength, similair to the tactic of enduring attacks to lure the opponent into lowering their guard (or in boxing terminology, the Rope-A-Dope).
  • God Hand allows players to build their own combos, which of course lets players customize their moveset to use nothing but boxing moves. Even so, based on cutscenes and boss fights, Gene definitely has several boxing techniques and characteristics in his canon fighting style.
  • While the films never portray Indiana Jones' hand-to-hand combat skills as anything more than Good Old Fisticuffs, the PC adventure game adaptation of The Last Crusade shows him sparring with Barnett College's boxing coach in his off-hours. This comprises the game's combat tutorial. It's explicitly noted in dialogue that this is his way of practicing for pummeling Nazi agents.
  • T.J. Combo from Killer Instinct, he even wears Red Boxing Gloves while some of the other fighters use swords and even laser swords. In the reboot, however, he's much more of a mixed martial artist, adding grabs and kicks to his moveset.
  • The King of Fighters
    • Heavy D!, as the leader of American Sports Team, uses standard boxing techniques in the KOF tournament.
    • Vanessa combines boxing with flash stepping for truly Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs and insane combos!
    • Nelson joined in KOF XIV to deliver more hard-hitting boxing combos, using a robotic arm as replacement for a loss of limb.
  • Cole Phelps from LANoire learned to box in the Army as an officer during WW2. These skills serve him well when subduing suspects as a detective in the course of the game. Of course, as the game takes place in 1940s America before Eastern martial arts were popularized in the West, most of the NPC's use boxing-style fighting techniques as well.
  • Kazuma Kiryu of the Like a Dragon series uses techniques from various styles. However, he has more than a little boxing influence. This is most emphasized in the prequel Yakuza 0. Two of Kiryu's three trainers, Bacchus and Kamoji, whom respectively teach the Brawler and Rush styles, are explicitly noted to have experience in boxing. Rush in particular features an emphasis on fast footwork, Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs and a high-guard, bladed stance heavily influenced by boxing. Despite this, he notes that he would fare poorly as a professional boxer due to all the rules and regulations involved after beating an intoxicated boxer in a bad mood.
    • Appropriately, also from Yakuza 0, Recurring Boss character Kuze is a former pro-boxer. These skills are large part of the reason he's able to repeatedly face off against the much younger Kiryu and hold his own.
    • Throughout the franchise, generic thugs fight with a number of styles, from martial arts to pro wrestling. Boxing-type enemies are a common sight, recognized with their "dukes up" posture, bouncing stance, and punching attacks.
    • Korean gangster Joon-Gi Han of Yakuza 6 fights primarily in a boxing style. In Yakuza: Like a Dragon as a playable character he or more specifically his body double mixes up his fisticuffs with guns and knives.
    • In Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Yosuke Tendo is also a former pro-boxer who looks somewhat like a Japanese Mike Tyson and the head of his own family. He ends up being the game's proper Final Boss and is tough enough to put up a fight against a group that consists of trained assassins, experienced cops, and hobos, especially once he puts on a pair of knuckle dusters that allow him to deliver punches capable of insta-killing anyone. To a lesser extent, one of Saeko's starting moves is to do some punches she learned from boxercising.
    • In Lost Judgment, one of the side activities involves Yagami joining a boxing club to investigate a particularly aggressive boxer. With DLC, he actually takes the skills from said club to use as a new fighting style.
  • In Luigi's Mansion 3, two Hammers, one of them having boxing gloves and the other constantly chucking weights, attack Luigi in the Fitness Center. The boxing gloves block Luigi's Strobulb flashes, so he has to bait the one with the weights into throwing them into the other, rendering it dizzy and vulnerable to Luigi's Strobulb. It's much harder than it sounds.
  • Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams: Roberto Frois is a half-Japanese Christian missionary whose weapon of choice are the "Exorcising Beads" implanted in his arms. Whereas the other characters use weapons like swords, almost all of Roberto's attacks are boxing techniques done by his fists (though he does have a roundhouse kick as one of his techniques). This means that when you use the special Counter-Attack "Issen" as Roberto, you can actually slice through your enemies with your fists the same way if you would be using a sword.
  • Akihiko Sanada from Persona 3 and Persona 4: Arena was a boxer before he became a Persona-user, and his style of fighting is still based around boxing moves.
  • Pokémon:
    • Hitmonchan from the first generation games is a Pokémon able to use almost any punching technique (including elemental punches), and has built-in Red Boxing Gloves. Up until Generation IV, it was pretty much useless, since the elemental punches were based on its awful Special Attack rather than Physical Attack, which as a boxer is obviously its better stat. The same generation also gave Hitmonchan a new ability in Iron Fist, which strengthens its punching attacks even more.
    • Generation VII introduces a new boxing Pokémon in the form of Crabrawler, who is a pure fighting-typed coconut crab. Unlike Hitmonchan, its boxing glove-like pincers are blue.
  • Edward Falcon, The Hero of PowerStone relies on boxing techniques when fighting hand-to-hand.
  • Joe Baker from the Resident Evil 7: Biohazard DLC End of Zoe, is a bit of a break from other playable characters in the franchise in that he prefers not to use weapons, not even a knife like Tofu. He can, but his go-to when dealing with the molded monsters or his still-not-dead brother, Jack, are his fists.
  • Dauntless of Rising Thunder is a giant robotic boxer with large fists colored like boxing gloves.
  • Tokugawa Ieyasu from Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes, as a part of his Character Development, shifts from being a spear-wielder to a bare-fisted boxer. Complete with wearing a boxer's hoodie.
  • Night Shift of Skylanders was a retired professional boxer before becoming one of the Skylanders in charge of protecting Cloudbreak. Similarly, one of Terrafin's many jobs prior to full-time heroics was as a boxer.
  • Street Fighter was quite a number of these in the numerous installments in the franchise.
    • From Street Fighter, released in 1987, Mike was the very first fighter in the series to employ boxing as a fighting style. Though he has never been featured in any other game afterward, he was given a character profile for the Capcom Fighter Network (CFN) providing further details including that he was not the same individual as Balrog (read next entry for details).
    • Balrog from Street Fighter II, a big Scary Black Man with big Red Boxing Gloves. Notably, his name in the Japanese version was Mike Bison, an obvious play on real-life boxer Mike Tyson. The name was then given the Big Bad (altered to M. Bison) to avoid being too obvious. In the tie-in comic, he is soundly trounced by Ryu, who then claims that a fighter who neglects his entire lower body and two of his limbs has no right to call himself a martial artist.
    • Dudley from Street Fighter III is a British boxer who's a Quintessential British Gentleman, though he does have a few illegal techniques in his roster. (Some fans posit that he may only use the illegal techniques we see in the series' tournaments and street fights, not in actual boxing matches.) He's also never seen without his big blue boxing gloves.
    • Ed in Street Fighter V, having been raised by Balrog mixes up boxing with Psycho Power techniques.
  • Streets of Rage: R. Bear, the boss of Level 5 from Streets Of Rage 2, wears boxing gloves and keeps his fists in front of his face during the fight in a boxer's pose. Along with his gloves, his striped shirt, overalls, and lack of shoes bring to mind early 20th-century pugilism. Despite his prodigious size, R. Bear is surprisingly fast and agile, almost dancing around the field on his tiptoes while keeping his fists in front of his face, emphasizing boxing's importance on footwork. This doesn't stop him from having some of the most damaging attacks in the game, though.
  • Super Smash Bros.: Little Mac from Punch-Out!! appears in Brawl as an Assist Trophy, where he hits opponents using boxing techniques and dashes. He's actually one of the most useful Assist Trophies. He later got Promoted to Playable in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. Everything he does is based around boxing. No cheap shots; just quick, clean, and powerful punches.
  • Transformers: Devastation: Probably as a tribute to his Prime counterpart, this is Bumblebee's default fighting style.
  • A few in the Tekken series:
    • Steve Fox, who was a champion middleweight boxer before he ran into trouble with The Mafia. His style relies almost entirely on punch attacks, with the kick buttons being repurposed for various evasive techniques.
    • Roger and Roger Jr., a pair of genetically engineered kangaroos who were taught to box. They have a Palette Swap named Alex, who's a boxing velociraptor. The pair use plenty of kicks and professional wrestling moves as well though.
  • Wielding the Fist Weapon line in Warframe will turn your Warframe into one, especially with the amount of Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs some of the stances are capable of.
    • The Earth Elemental 'frame Atlas pretty much has this effect going, with how his first ability is a super-powered punch, as well as the fact that his signature weapon is the Tekko, a pair of razor-Power Fists that gets an increased Status chance if Atlas is wielding them.
  • Sophia Blazkowicz from Wolfenstein: Youngblood is officially described as a "bare-knuckle brawler" and is seen pounding a heavy bag in the first two trailers. However, this never comes into play in-game apart from her introductory cutscene, since both she and her twin sister use knives and hatchets for melee attacks.

    Web Animation 
  • RWBY:
    • Yang, the Bare-Fisted Monk, has a fighting style that's a mishmash of many styles under Rule of Cool, but boxing techniques and stances are among her most visible influences. Based on her blocking and footwork (specifically how she slides to dodge attacks), she fights like a boxer, with some martial arts training to integrate her legs.
    • Theodore, the Headmaster of Shade Academy, is a boxer that enhances his already-devastating punches with Tricked-Out Gloves infused with Gravity Dust. He's famous for his physical strength and fighting prowess, with a reputation as the strongest of the headmasters of the combat schools.

    Webcomics 
  • Esther de Groot, of the Bobbins Verse, is a skinny goth girl who often wears a tutu. She fights under the Marquess of Queensbury rules, and her record when last reported was 28 fights, won 27 (14 by TKO), drawn 1. And as she demonstrates here, she's perfectly able to employ these skills in no-holds-barred combat with other martial artists, even if she's not above using dirty tricks and psychology to get an edge on them.
  • The protagonist of Dogfight counts as this since he originally trained to be a boxing before he started working as a fighter for Amaranth. While he does use a combination of kicks, headbutts, bites, knees, elbows, brawling, and grappling... boxing is still his primary fighting style.
  • Peki from Furry Fight Chronicles is known as Punching Peki in the ring. During Chapter 16, she shows her true merit by curling her flippers into oversized fists and proves to have blinding footwork and a Megaton Punch strong enough to hurt Adelgund despite the size difference between them.

    Western Animation 
  • Vi from Arcane is skilled with her fists beyond what one might expect of someone who likely gets into messy street fights fairly often. For instance, she holds the top 10 high scores on a sparring robot at a local arcade, and the brief scene of her training on it shows she has impressive speed, offensive and defensive techniques, and power. She'll kick or even use Improvised Weapons if needed, but boxing is her major strength.
  • Professional benders in The Legend of Korra have styles much more based on boxing techniques versus the traditional martial arts of the original series.
  • Bumblebee from Transformers: Prime busts out some boxing moves against a Vehicon in the episode "Convoy". Must've picked it up from cable.
  • The Venture Brothers: A former villain by the name of "Turnbuckle" is mentioned by Monarch during a spiel on the pre-GOCI days, being an aspiring supervillain who, true to this trope, styled himself on a early 20th-century boxer's theme. His attempt to claim fame was by kidnapping a young Rusty Venture and challenging Rusty's bodyguard to win the boy back. Unfortunately, Rusty's bodyguard happened to be the Action Man (no, not that one) who was leagues above Turn-Buckle's skill level and had no compunctions about fighting by the Queen's rules, especially not with a would-be kidnapper—Poor Turnbuckle found himself pistol-whipped into the ground "like a tent pole" and finished off with a coup-de-grace to the head, ending his career before it began.

 
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Fuji, The Fighter

Armed with nothing but a hot pink leotard and her bare fists, Fuji is a powerful wrestler and mixed martial artist who can punch the heads of zombies clean off, as well as being Cordelia's girlfriend.

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5 (3 votes)

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