2 part question which champion had the most amateur fights and which champion won the most amateur fights?
I do believe Sheriff Hascup should know. I'm curious myself. I have to think fan favorite, Sven Ottke is way up there on the list though. He stayed in the ams so long, I think he had over three hundred matches.
Sven Ottke was said to have an Amateur Record of 256-47-5 Laszlo Papp was 301-12-6 Joel Casamayor was 363-30
Donald Curry Amateur Record is usually listed as 400-4, but sometimes listed as 400-6. I also seen his record listed at 431-18. Some sources list Johnny Bumphus with an Amateur record of 457-15, but other sources have him at 341-16.
Taylor's Amateur Record was 481-8, but he was never a World Champion. Vince Shomo had over 650 bouts, but was never a World Champion either.
Tszyu had a great record, winning the top titles. Mark Breland looked unbeatable with a high knockout %.
Breland is one of the only ones — maybe the only one — who won the NY Golden Gloves four times in the Open division. (A very few others I think won it four times but at least one was in the Novice Division, which is iirc 10 fights or less upon entering the tournament and you’re fighting other relative beginners. Brelands were all best-of-the-best.) I once saw Hector Camacho listed as 99-1 as an amateur but I think he actually lost a few more. Maybe won a few more too.
The vast majority of amateur records are inflated. Most top-level amateurs don’t tend to keep track of how many fights they’ve had, and they also usually count contentious decisions against them as wins. It’s a pretty common occurrence afaik. It’s also quite common for them to count youth bouts or exhibitions as amateur bouts from before they were allowed to fight as an amateur. Rigo reportedly has an amateur record of 463-12 or so though, to answer the question.
Since this thread was started, Loma turned pro and won some pro titles. His amateur record was reportedly 396-1. I would say Donald Curry was first with a 400-4 record, although Loma's record is more verifiable, as a huge number of his were international bouts. Curry fought a ton in Texas tournaments going back to his childhood. They're the two dancing around the 400 verifiable fights/wins mark.
I'm just rambling, since I was thinking about the topic. Usually, if you have more than 100 wins as an amateur, you tend to win a pro title, at least if you're a US amateur. There haven't been too many guys with more than 100 wins who were total busts as a pro. For example, regardless of what fans think of them, Gervonta Davis won 206 amateur fights. Shakur Stevenson won 140+. Ryan Garcia won 215 fights as an amateur. Devin Haney won 130+ amateur fights. Errol Spence won 135 amateur fights. Shawn Porter won 276 amateur fights. Keith Thurman won more than 100 amateur fights. All won pro titles. Just something to keep in mind when looking at the heavyweights coming up. Most heavyweights don't have a lot of amateur fights. If they're good in the amateurs, someone wants them to start fighting for money right away. At least they do in the US. Even if you start off poorly, like Michael Bentt, who won 148 fights as an amateur and was a favorite to make the 1988 US Olympic team until he was upset by Ray Mercer. Bentt signed with Kronk after losing the Olympic Box-offs, got Emanuel Steward as a trainer and manager, and immediately lost his pro debut by first-round knockout to Jerry Jones on ESPN. And he was subesequently dumped. But, when picked as an easy hometown defense for WBO champ Tommy Morrison (who had more than 200 amateur wins himself), Bentt wiped out Morrison in one and won the strap. All that said, Richard Torrez won 154 amateur fights. So, no matter what folks think of him, there's a pretty good chance Torrez is going to win something as a pro at some point. The guys with not a lot of amateur wins can certainly be great heavyweights. Most great heavyweights didn't have a lot of amateur fights. I'm just saying if you DO HAPPEN TO HAVE a lot of amateur wins, and you're a heavyweight, it's kinda hard to screw it up and not become a champ. Even if you lose your pro debut, like Bentt did.
Good observations. Most heavyweights who have a ton of amateur fights started earlier and a lot of their experience wasn’t at heavyweight as they were growing. But it’s also a division where a lot more guys start later in life — they’re big, strong, athletic fellas who walk into a boxing gym because they are (or at least people tell them they are) badasses and they have won some street fights — someone says ‘you should be a boxer’ and they take it up. There aren’t as many amateur heavyweights to begin with so harder to get bouts, and when someone comes along who is good and beats up all the local/regional competition, they aren’t keen to get beat up again and again. So they have trouble getting fights outside of tournaments or have to travel farther and pre-arrange matchups. If you go to 4-5 shows in a row and don’t get to fight, turning pro begins to make a lot more sense — especially if you’re already 20 years old or whatever. I remember Roy Jones Sr had an amateur super heavyweight who was like 6-0 with 6 KOs and people didn’t want to fight him. I had a guy who was like 5-0 and we got a call asking if we’d be willing to fight him at a show that was kind of halfway between us and Pensacola, Florida, and we said sure. My guy beat him. We have been happy to come down to Florida to fight him because we had trouble finding fights too, but they never took us up on it — I think Roy Sr’s guy quit soon after … or at least I never saw nor heard of him again.
