Best pro heavyweight that Teofilo Stevenson could beat?

Stevenson was a great amateur. He would have been a lousy pro.

 

Scott LeDeux

 

This is truly impossible to answer.

He might have been another Muhammad Ali, or he might have been another Audley Harrison.

 

Back then the amateurs fought with no head gear, and in some cases in high pressure setting due to the politics of the times.

Have you seen Stevenson's fights? He was a towering force with skills, a devastating right and, solid durability. There would be no one like him in the 1970's. At the very least would become a top 5 ranked heavyweight had he turned professional.

 

He beat some future pro contenders, didn't he? I think he'd be up there if things were different in his day. He had an economical style so the extra rounds could be trained for.

 

He was a big amateur and had that ko right hand....that was it. The top tier from that time would have destroyed him. He would have made the lower top 10, got koed several times as he tried to move up and then retired back to Cuba.

 

Igor Vysotsky had peak Stevenson's number so completely that the Cubans sent Milyano Romero to Montreal with Teo as an alternate with the expectation Vysotsky would be the Soviet HW entrant. Unlike Stevenson, Romero could compete with Igor [and won their rivalry 2-1, possibly 3-1 if the Soviet representative in Montreal had been who the Cubans expected]. However, unbeknownst to the Cubans, Vyskosky sustained a severe cut in sparring prior to Montreal. Igor was susceptible to cuts, and this one freed Teo to try repeating what he did in Munich.

Vysotsky had really dominated Stevenson in Cuba despite every trick attempted by hometown cooking to slow down the pace during their initial confrontation in the July 1973 Giraldo Cordova Cardin Tournament. Nonetheless, Igor, a strong, defensively skilled pain-in-the-ass counter puncher with knockout power in both hands, took the 3-2 decision in a match which would have been a 5-0 shutout on neutral turf [if not an uninterrupted stoppage due to Teo gassing, which might well have happened if Stevenson didn't catch a couple breaks to have his gloves retied]. Castro reportedly had the entirety of that B&W footage confiscated so Cuba's Olympic hero would not be seen getting repeatedly shown up in front of his domestic worshipers. [Nor would it be accessible for American or other foreign strategists to evaluate.] However, a snippet of Vysotsky-Stevenson I is currently available on-line, one of the segments which doesn't show the hometown favorite being completely schooled.

Here is that brief clip from Vysotsky W 3 Stevenson I:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOPnzGQLN28

Granted, it doesn't show much, but it shows me enough to be convinced that somebody like prime Jerry Quarry might have chewed him up and spit him out.


Before Teo was allowed to defend his Gold Medal in Montreal, he and Vysotsky squared off in April 1976 before Igor's Olympic sidelining injury was incurred. This time in Minsk, Vysotsky really beat the **** out of Stevenson, flooring Teo in all three rounds before it was stopped.

Remember that. Igor Vysotsky PWNED Teofilo Stevenson, not when the Cuban legend was a neophyte losing 5-0 to Duane Bobick at the 1971 PanAm Games, not when he was faded as he was when Francisco Damiani beat him at the 1982 World Amateur Championships in Munich, nor when Craig Payne decisioned him in the semifinals of the North American Championships in Houston during September 1983. Igor Vysotsky took Stevenson to the woodshed TWICE between Teo's first two Olympic Gold Medals. He KNOCKED OUT the same Stevenson who put away John Tate after 90 seconds in Montreal.

Lazslo Papp also reported, in assessing Stevenson's chances to match Papp's original Gold Medal three-peat before the 1980 Olympics. Papp said he wasn't aware of any Vysotsky-Stevenson I or II footage to exist [keep in mind that he was then a coach for the Hungarian squad, which was still under Iron Curtain rule], and also that Teo had been slammed down twice "like a traffic light" in little known domestic competition.

So even at his absolute peak, Stevenson was very, very far from being an invincible amateur HW, so vulnerable in fact that he'd have been withheld from the Montreal Olympics by the Cubans if Igor Vysotsky had showed up to compete.

 

A few points here ... I think your over stating your case ... Stevenson crushe former world champion John Tate, Duane Bobick and a myriad of other fighters that made various degrees of success in the pros. His size, strength , speed and power were legit as was his chin ... as far as Vysotsky goes, who knows how great he could have been ? For all we know he might have been an all time great if was allowed to turn pro ..

 

It's a bit much to believe that Vysotsky-Stevenson II in Minsk wasn't preserved with footage, because it seems certain to have been regarded as a preview for Montreal. Multiple knockdowns by Vysotsky ahead of a knockout win would surely help us evaluate Stevenson's chin and punch resistance better. However, knockdowns in amateur boxing tend to occur as the result of individual punches, since a staggering will result in an immediate halt of the action to administer a standing eight count. [In Montreal, the referee immediately called "Stop!" as soon as Teo's right landed on Tate and began counting to eight. John remained on his feet for seven seconds before crumbling down in a neutral corner after slowly staggering across the ring.]

For Vysotsky, I think his susceptibility to cuts would have torpedoed him as a professional. Stevenson wasn't the kind of puncher to typically carve an opponent up though. I do believe Teo would have been a more successful professional than Igor, because he seemed to possess the necessary mobility and cut resistance. He seemed to have average arm length for a man of his height, much of his overall reach in that long collarbone, like Liston's. [Against Cleveland Williams, the Big Cat's arms were clearly longer than Sonny's, although Liston had the greater fingertip to fingertip span. Randy Gordon had a great concept for measuring jab length from end of collarbone to end of arm, but there was no established tradition to support it. It was the torque from those broad shoulders that made Teo's well schooled straight right so deadly though.]

As great an amateur as Stevenson was, he was also presented in situations which showed him to good advantage during his best years. We don't see him losing 5-0 to Bobick in 1971, and we don't see him getting repeatedly dropped and stopped by Vysotsky in 1976. Currently only a tantalizingly brief clip of Vysotsky-Stevenson I is readily available. How much is substance [granted, a GREAT deal], and how much is perception, due to what visual cracks in the telegenic facade have been tucked away? Professional promoters wanting to get him into the punch for pay ranks wouldn't have wanted us to see him losing twice to Vysotsky any more than the Communist authorities did.

Should Vysotsky-Stevenson II actually exist, and ever sees the light of day if so, then we'll have a far more valuable measuring stick for evaluating both than we've had. This legendary knockout loss is by far the most important defeat of Teo's career.

 

Tate and Bobick were decent amateurs but poor pros. Neither could take a punch as a start.

 

Big John did defeat the biggest established punchers he fought as a professional though, handing Mercado his first career defeat in two rounds [which in turn softened Bernardo up for Mike Weaver's first major knockout win]. Mercado, Knoetze and Coetzee would unquestionably be pegged as certain knockout losses against Tate on these forums today, if John had never actually matched and defeated them impressively.

Weaver-Tate was actually an excellent performance by John over the first 14 rounds, then ruined by some awful corner advice by Ace Miller to stop doing what worked so well for 13 of 14 rounds, and back off for the final three minutes.

In an interview conducted sometime around late 1982-early 1983, Larry Holmes was asked if he thought it was a good idea for Cooney to return to action in a proposed match with Big John. Not mincing words, Larry immediately replied, "I think it's a bad idea for John Tate! We know how hard Cooney can punch. There's something wrong with John Tate, the way he gets knocked out and stays knocked out ." But I honestly think John might have pulled it off over a rusty and vulnerable Cooney if he was well prepared. I don't think he was ruined by Weaver, but Berbick in Montreal scuttled his career in a way that Duane Bobick's wasn't after Norton and Knoetze.

Regardless, 1979 was as solid a year for Tate as any top heavyweight enjoyed towards the close of that decade.

 

Maybe a George Chaplin, Chris McDonald type heavyweight. Remember Jimmy Clark was arguably robbed in 2 of their 3 fights (and was winning the second one when he unfortunately got caught). He was lucky he didn't face a couple of American amateur stars that definitely would have beaten him in the late 70's.

 

Terry Daniels,Dave Ziggy, Ron Stander,