Xu Can (; born March 9, 1994) is a Chinese

professional boxer Professional boxing, or prizefighting, is regulated, sanctioned boxing. Professional boxing bouts are fought for a purse that is divided between the boxers as determined by contract. Most professional fights are supervised by a regulatory auth ...

who held the

World Boxing Association The World Boxing Association (WBA), formerly known as the National Boxing Association (NBA), is an international professional boxing organization based in Panama. The WBA awards its world championship title at the professional level. Founded ...

(WBA) (

Regular Regular may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * "Regular" (Badfinger song) * Regular tunings of stringed instruments, tunings with equal intervals between the paired notes of successive open strings Other uses * Regular character, ...

version)

featherweight Featherweight is a weight class in the combat sports of boxing, kickboxing, mixed martial arts, and Greco-Roman wrestling. Boxing Professional boxing History A featherweight boxer weighs in at a limit of . In the early days of the division, ...

title from 2019 to 2021.

Professional career

Early career

Xu turned professional in 2013. His first 14 fights ended in decision, of which he was victorious in 12 of them. In his 15th fight on October 3, 2017, he recorded his first stoppage win against former

WBA (Regular) The World Boxing Association (WBA), formerly known as the National Boxing Association (NBA), is an international professional boxing organization based in Panama. The WBA awards its world championship title at the professional level. Founded i ...

super bantamweight Super bantamweight, also known as junior featherweight, is a boxing weight classes, weight class in professional boxing, contested from and up to . There were attempts by boxing promoters in the 1920s to establish this weight class, but few sanct ...

champion

Nehomar Cermeño Nehomar Andrés Cermeño Febres (born June 7, 1979) is a Venezuelan professional boxer who held the World Boxing Association#Super titles, WBA (Regular) super bantamweight title from 2016 to 2017. He also held the WBA interim titles at bantamweig ...

, prevailing via seventh-round

corner retirement A corner retirement (also known as a corner stoppage) is a term in boxing used to describe a fight ending when a boxer refuses to continue or their corner team pulls them out during the rest period between rounds. This results in the referee sto ...

. The win saw Xu capture the vacant WBA International featherweight title.

WBA (Regular) featherweight champion

Xu vs. Rojas

Xu was rewarded for his twelve fight winning streak with the opportunity to challenge the reigning WBA (Regular) featherweight champion Jesús Rojas. The bout was scheduled for the undercard of the

Jaime Munguia Jaime is a common Spanish and Portuguese male given name for Jacob (name), James (name), Jamie, or Jacques. In Occitania Jacobus became ''Jacome'' and later ''Jacme''. In east Spain, ''Jacme'' became ''Jaime'', in Aragon it became ''Chaime'', and i ...

and Takeshi Inoue

WBO The World Boxing Organization (WBO) is an organization which sanctions professional boxing bouts. It is recognized by the International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF) as one of the four major world championship groups, alongside the World Boxin ...

super-welterweight title fight, which took place at the

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, on January 26, 2019, and was broadcast by

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and Canal Space. Xu won the fight, which BoxingScene dubbed an early candidate for "Fight of the Year", by unanimous decision. He was awarded scorecards of 116–112, 117–111 and 118–110. Both fighters threw a combined 2574 strikes total, with Xu landing 380 and Rojas 388 total punches. Xu became only the third Chinese world boxing champion, after

Xiong Chaozhong Xiong Chaozhong or Xiong Zhaozhong (born October 3, 1982) is a Chinese professional boxer. He is the first Chinese/Hmong to win a boxing world title, having held the World Boxing Council, WBC mini-flyweight title from 2012 to 2014. Early life Xi ...

and

Zou Shiming Zou Shiming (; born 18 May 1981) is a Chinese former boxer and two-time Olympic champion. In amateur boxing, he is China's most successful boxer of all time. In the light-flyweight division, he won three consecutive Olympic medals (bronze in 200 ...

Xu vs. Kubo

Xu made his first title defense against the former WBA Regular Super Bantamweight champion Shun Kubo on May 26, 2019, at the Fuzhou Sports Center Gymnasium in his native

Fuzhou, Jiangxi Fuzhou is a prefecture-level city in the northeastern part of Jiangxi province, People's Republic of China. Fuzhou is located to the south of the provincial capital Nanchang, bordered in the east by Fujian Province. Its total area is . The popu ...

. He successfully retained his title with a sixth-round technical knockout of Kubo. Xu first knocked Kubo down near the end of the third round, before stopping the Japanese challenger with a flurry of punches at the 1:16 minute mark of the sixth round.

Xu vs. Robles III

In his next title defense, Xu defeated Manny Robles III by unanimous decision, with scores of 120–108, 119–109, 118–110, on November 23.

Failed Warrington negotiations

Talks were held in 2020 and early 2021 to try to make Xu's third defense of his title against the IBF champion at the time,

Josh Warrington Josh Warrington (born 14 November 1990) is an English professional boxer. He is a two-time featherweight world champion, having held the International Boxing Federation (IBF) title twice between 2018 and 2022. In 2018, a documentary style movi ...

. However, the fight was postponed due to disagreements from both sides: Xu wanted fans present at the fight, and Warrington refused to leave the United Kingdom to fight on Chinese soil. The chances of Xu and Warrington ever fighting were dramatically reduced when Warrington subsequently vacated his IBF title and then lost to the unheralded Mauricio Lara in February 2021, when he was sensationally knocked out by Lara in an upset defeat.

Xu vs. Wood

On July 6, 2021, it was announced that Xu would be defending his WBA (Regular) title against British featherweight champion Leigh Wood in Brentwood, England on July 31 as part of Matchroom's Fight Camp. Despite being a -350 favorite, Xu was outboxed during periods of the fight, and suffered an upset defeat via twelfth-round technical knockout.

Post-title career

Xu would next return to the ring on October 7, 2022 to face Brandon Leon Benitez in

Plant City, Florida Plant City is an incorporated city in Hillsborough County, Florida, United States, approximately midway between Brandon and Lakeland along Interstate 4. It is part of the Tampa Bay area. The population was 39,764 at the 2020 census. Despite ma ...

. Xu suffered his second consecutive loss, via split decision; one judge scored the bout 97–93 in Xu's favor, but he was overruled by the other two judges who both scored the bout 96–94 for Benitez.

Personal life

Xu was born in

, and has since moved his residence to

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

. His parents were pastry-makers, and he was encouraged by his father to pursue a career in boxing. When Xu dropped out of

junior high school Middle school, also known as intermediate school, junior high school, junior secondary school, or lower secondary school, is an educational stage between primary school and secondary school. Afghanistan In Afghanistan, middle school includes ...

during his third year, he joined China's only professional boxing club at the time, named Zhongwei, in

Kunming Kunming is the capital and largest city of the province of Yunnan in China. The political, economic, communications and cultural centre of the province, Kunming is also the seat of the provincial government. During World War II, Kunming was a Ch ...

Yunnan Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...

where he began training as a boxer.

Professional boxing record

References

External links

*
Xu Can - Profile, News Archive & Current Rankings
a
Box.Live
{{DEFAULTSORT:Xu, Can 1994 births Living people Chinese male boxers Sportspeople from Suzhou Martial artists from Jiangsu Featherweight boxers Super-featherweight boxers Light-welterweight boxers World featherweight boxing champions World Boxing Association champions