Today in Boxing History: Ten-count for the former USSR

Happy Holidays! On this day in 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as executive president of the Soviet Union. The U.S.S.R. dissolved shortly thereafter and was replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States.

The end of the Soviet Union affected many aspects of our world, including boxing. The fall of the Iron Curtain allowed many Russians and Eastern Europeans an opportunity to compete in a professional sport that had been closed to them for decades. This opened the door for fighters like Kostya Tszyu and Vitali Klitschko to enter professional boxing and win titles.

That change has also ushered in the current state of the heavyweight division, as we have Russians Nikolai Valuev and Oleg Maskaev respectively holding the WBA and WBC belts, and Ukrainian Wladimir Klitschko standing atop the IBF.