To be technical Perez was never an Olympian. He won a World Junior Title, but went pro quite young by HW standards.
Well yeah but I thought we were only talking about boxing. I still think it's a great achievement. Kickboxing is far far different from boxing.
He's done exceptionally well to get this far after taking up the sport so late. Check out Billy Conn's record though. I remember reading a post on the classic about some of the calibre of fighters he'd beaten after only having been fighting for five years.
jennings ain't winning no title. wilder and stiverne both beat him. i can think of a handful of other guys in the heavyweight division that beat him as well. the guy who trained irish mike perez failed him.
It is. But it's definitely an advantage to have that as a background before going into boxing. Lots of European fighters have very decorated kickboxing backgrounds, unusual to see an American guy who started out as a kickboxer - not very popular here.
Mike Perez is overrated and good at making people look bad, Jennings could have done better, but I blame Perez for his poor showing.