<P> 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 . </P> <P> In professional boxing, until the 1980s, the "championship distance" generally referred to the title rounds that numbered between 13 and 15 . For decades, the last heavyweight title match scheduled for less than 15 rounds had been the September 22, 1927 10 - rounder between Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey; from then, the only bout that was not scheduled for 15 rounds had been a scheduled 20 - rounder between Joe Louis and Abe Simon on March 21, 1941 . This changed though, following the death of lightweight Duk Koo Kim in 1982 after his fourteen - round fight with Ray Mancini . Almost immediately, the World Boxing Council (WBC) issued a statement saying that WBC world title bouts would be set for 12 rounds . </P> <P> The following year on March 27, 1983, the first ever heavyweight title fight scheduled for 12 rounds under that rule was held by the WBC between Larry Holmes and Lucien Rodriguez . The World Boxing Association, from which the World Boxing Organization had not yet separated, later followed suit by voting to reduce their championship distances to 12 rounds on October 19, 1987 . While the International Boxing Federation, which had recently broken away from the WBA, continued to hold onto the position there was no documented medical evidence to show a 15 - round fight is more dangerous than a 12 - round fight, they eventually voted to shorten their championship distance to 12 rounds as well on June 3, 1988 . </P> <P> The last heavyweight 15 - rounder title fight was on October 16, 1987 between Mike Tyson and Tyrell Biggs . The last middleweight 15 - rounder title fight was a World Boxing Board title match on June 7, 1997 in which Jose Alfredo Flores won a split decision over Eric Holland in Ruidoso, New Mexico . </P>

When did boxing go from 15 to 12 rounds
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