When Gary Russell TKOs Lomachenko will he be a superstar??

nah they were still doing well in the 90's and had some success in the 00's but its been a very barron spell. On the bright side Darmani Rock and Shakur Stevenson look like great prospects

 

Saying that winning 2 gold medals isn't impressive is simply talking down Loma's achievements. It's not just about the winning an Olympic gold medal. Like someone previously said, it could be that you also had a bit of luck to win it once, but winning it twice, then winning World Championships twice, plus one silver medal and winning the European Championships, then that means that you are very very special. It is the fact that he managed to maintain on the top and keep winning all those major competitions. And it's not like he had no competition, he defeated many guys who were proven amateurs themselves, such as Toledo and Selimov. Those are some real elite guys he had to go through.
If you are wondering if Ward and Oscar would have done the same thing, I don't believe that they would, although Ward was excellent in my opinion and definitely had the potential to win the Olympics again, considering that there were literally no high profile Cubans in LHW at the time, which would surely pose a great challenge for him.

As for the British boxers, generally they were never as much of a factor as some other nations like Russia, United Stats, Kazakhstan and of course Cuba are. It's Cubans that usually win the most competitions in the amateurs, so the absence of Latin Americans, Britons and other you've mentioned isn't something that would drastically change the situation. Most of the time it's the Cubans you have to go through if you want to prove yourself.

 

You dont think if all the great Mexicans, Panamanians, etc had fought as amateurs they wouldnt have won anything?

The reason certain countries dominte so much is because their fighters stay amateur.

Latin Americans dont care about fighting amateur so you have an entire block of the planet where boxing is popular that you dont have to compete against in the amateurs

 

the typical latin american fighting style wouldnt be a great style to have for an amatuer boxer though

 

Yes, its like being the best U.21 soccer player ever....who cares??

He can do what he wants, but yeah, I see it as a waste. he could have been proving himself at the highest level, instead he stayed in the minor leagues.

Wlad Klitschko didnt seem to mind going pro young. Plenty of Eastern Europeans will start going pro earlier and earlier when they see the money that can be made.

The best Easterm Euros are now going pro. Top Rank has signed up a bunch of them.

Theres lots of Russians/Ukranians and Kazakhs in the pro game now.

Even Cubans are starting to flee to the west to turn pro too.

 

I didn't say that they wouldn't have won anything. I said that they are not much of a factor in the amateur boxing as some other countries that are traditionally doing well.

And it's not "an entire block of the planet", South Americans such as Brazilians are doing relatively fine. There's Lopes from Brazil, won the World Championships in Baku, now won the bronze medal most recently, he's 25-26 and still amateur. There's Conceicao, won silver most recently, about the same age, so I wouldn't say that "Latin Americans don't go to the pros on the first occasion" although I must admit that Mexicans mostly go pro very early without even properly competing in the amateurs.
But if you are asking me if they would make the difference generally, no they wouldn't.

 

Would it?

People loo back with rose tinted glasses a bit. The Soviets were never overly strong in boxing. American amateur boxing has fallen off a cliff in the last decade, but before that, they pretty much dominated with the Cubans.

Most of those famous Americans pros from the 2000s and back, have Olympic medals at home from when they were kids.

Eastern Euros have generally been going pro for the last 20 years.

 

barely any Kazakhs go pro and a lot of the top Russians still stay amateur, lots of ukrainians turning over though

 

Central America is a "whole block of the planet" especially considering how strong boxing is in the countries.

 

Loma is only 1-1, HELL NAH!!

But true boxing fans would know he beat a good fighter.

He'll be getting there

 

I can't wait for this fight. Probably the one I'm looking to the most.