Burned Out from Too Many Amateur Fights?

George Foreman had 26 or so amateur bouts and was burnt out by the time he was 50,

 

The sad reality is, those who have the best career always have slurred speech years later.

Even Hopkins sounds a bit punchy now.

 

A very disappointing career then......

 

Nah , it was just Danny Jacobs moved a lot better than the previous non movers he was facing. I don't need to click on any youtube page.
Ive already seen plenty of his old fights.

Kassim Ouma popped left hands off his stationary bonce like there was no tomorrow. Medi Budda delivered him uppercuts at will.
Golovkin was always a flat footed boxer. He didn't change at 34. His opposition got better.

 

I'm not taking about his feet, his handspeed has slowed down drastically. Sanchez doesn't do him any favours when he has him working on hard single shots on the pad. At his age and the way he has slowed down he should be working hard on his speed.

 

Meldrick Taylor is a sad example.

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But even before Chavez he was slurring slightly

 

Terrell Biggs.had a lot of fights .may of had an effect on his pro career.

 

I truly believe that GGG will win, probably by stoppage over Canelo, and then will shortly retire....and stay retired.

 

Zou Shiming looked WAY worse in 2012 Olympic Games than 4 years earlier. He looked like shot fighter back then, and got few gifts to win his 2nd gold, whereas the 1st time he looked great.

When he turned pro, he looked old and past it from the beginning. He also looks older than 36 which is his official age.

 

I have always thought that Donald Curry's rapid decline was due to his 300+ amateur fights. Good point noting the same with Norris. Other fighters suffer from harsh sparring. Some like Kelcie Banks, I believe are simply to frail to take much of a shot. The Banks KO (and Mike Quarry) is worse I have ever seen, he really did look dead, no twitching, no movement at all, for several minutes. You have others like Chuvalo and Tex Cobb who seemingly could be beaten with a baseball bat with no harm. Then you have the likes of Jerry Quarry, blessed to take a great punch, but cursed for the same reason, dying at age 53, due to the beatings he could withstand.

 

You find that unusual? One thing is for sure-if you are going to spar in Mayweather's gym every sparring match will count as ten since they spar as if it's life or death as Mayweather JR smiling's boasted about on a recent video. Seems that sparring there does more damage than amateur fights.
At 135 I once sparred with this 180 pound fellow and he almost ripped my head off.

 

Roy Jones Jr had 134 Amateur fights.
Floyd Mayweather 92.
Andre Ward 119.
Would they have been greater if they had over 300 amateur fights.
I seriously doubt it. Its the quality of the fights not the quantity.

 

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Great post.

I was alluding to this earlier (you may or may not agree), I think some of these examples - world champs, 10 year pro careers etc. - it's unlikely to be the guys with 300 amateur wins and about 8 losses who sustained much damage in the amateur ranks, usually.
Those are likely the guys with coaches who protected them, matched them with easy opposition, developed them, kept them out of wars.
Therefore I'd place the blame on the excessive sparring and the professional ranks, most likely.

 

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