Most Career Knockouts: Billy Bird’s 139 and the Archie Moore Record

Billy Bird is commonly credited with the most professional knockout wins, and BoxRec lists him with 139. But the record answer depends on the source: Guinness World Records names Archie Moore, crediting him with 145 career finishes classed as knockouts—while specifying that only 129 were in professional bouts. Those are not directly comparable totals. (Boxing Insider’s record overview, Bird’s BoxRec record, Guinness record)

Billy Bird’s professional knockout total

Bird, a London welterweight whose recorded career spans 1920–1948, has 260 wins, 73 losses and 20 draws in BoxRec, with 139 of his wins listed as KOs. Boxing Insider’s career-record overview identifies Bird as the professional knockout leader with 139 stoppage wins, ahead of Moore. (BoxRec, Boxing Insider)

You may also encounter 138 knockouts for Bird. That figure appears in secondary lists such as MansionBet’s “Top 5 Knockout Kings”; it differs from the 139 displayed by BoxRec when checked on November 1, 2026. Quote the total with its source and verification date rather than treating it as universally agreed. (MansionBet)

Why Archie Moore is also named as the record holder

Moore’s published totals vary substantially, even among established record sources.

Source figures checked November 1, 2026. These are competing published counts, not a single harmonized ranking.

The Hall of Fame biography explicitly calls Moore the all-time leader using its 141 figure. Guinness likewise names him in its career-record entry. Neither total matches his BoxRec professional record.

For a professional-record comparison using the same database, Bird’s 139 exceeds Moore’s 132 by seven. For the specific question “Who holds the Guinness record?”, its published answer is Moore. Guinness does not explain the 16 finishes outside its stated professional subtotal on that page, so its 145 should not be relabeled “145 professional knockouts.”

What counts as a knockout in this record?

A career KO total is not limited to opponents counted out after a knockdown. Technical knockout wins count toward the knockout total in a boxer’s fight record, according to BoxRec’s glossary. This is therefore a stoppage-win measure, not a count of ten-count finishes alone. (BoxRec’s TKO definition)

It is also an absolute total, not a knockout percentage. Using the BoxRec figures, Bird’s 139 KOs represent 53.46% of his 260 wins; Moore’s 132 represent 70.97% of his 186 wins. Moore stopped a larger share of the opponents he beat, while Bird accumulated more stoppage victories. Those figures do not, by themselves, establish who punched harder or faced better opposition. (Bird, Moore)

For the difference between individual result labels, see KO versus TKO in boxing.