The amateurs fights back then were far closer to the pro game. What we see today can be a game of tag with judges sometimes forgetting to score a punch! Trainers and promoters flock to the talent. Once the iron curtain came down, boxing became a global sport. To suggest trainers could not change the jab / right hand style into a more fluid pro game to me does not hold water. Would it happen over night? No. But if travel and the money was not an issue it could have happened in less than a decade for sure. In fact it did. Call it the Klitschko factor. All promoters and trainers today want in on the top level amateur talent. Even Teddy Atlas who's as biased as they come! 20-50 years ago, some of the best talent in Cuba and the Soviet Union had no pro options. PS: As far as athletes go, what the USA has today is as good or better in comparison to what they had 20-50 years ago. What USA kids lack today more than anything else is toughness and discipline. Boxing isn't basketball.
I've only seem him against Ali in an exhibition and in some grainy footage against Stevenson. When I was 11, I remember watching Greg Page beat him on ABC or CBS. (Or, maybe I just remember how excited my dad and uncles were watching it.) But I haven't seen it since. I read an interview with him where he talked about his bad skin and how easily he cut. Back then, amateur boxing was a lot like the pros. But, like I argued until my head exploded on another thread, those Soviet and Cuban guys back in the day fought a lot of novices who became "names" later on. The older I get, and the more Cuban medalists turn pro, the less inclined I am to marvel at the records of guys who never turned pro. Especially for people who grew up in Communist countries. When they got freedom and money, it seemed to suck the desire out of nearly all of them. There's a good chance it would've done the same to a lot of them, too. Who knows? Alex Miroshnichenko looked good in the amateurs, but if Oleg Maskaev (who wasn't an all-timer) could stop Alex in Oleg's debut, how good was Mirosnichenko?
This is what I mentioned in the Johnson vs Langford debate. According to Clay Langford was just 20, and unlike this example he was giving up an estimated 30 pounds.
Nobody knows how old Langford was when that fight took place. His age is currently is only anyones best guess. Irregardless, as I said in the thread its all about experience and Langford had more professional experience than Johnson and had already beaten or ran even with some of the greatest fighters in the world. Notice how I didnt simply reference age here either, I referenced the fighters experience level. In this situation you are talking about grown men fighting boys and those grown men had a TON more experience and the full financial backing of their government. Unlike many of the boys they were fighting who had been scratching their way out of the ghetto on substandard equipment and into international competition for the first time. But hey, keep arguing out of both sides of your mouth.
I would have liked to see alot of the guys below HW like Popenchenko, Shatkov, Lagutin, Ageev, Kulej, Lemeshev, Pietrzykowski, Papp turning pro earlier.
All of this is horsesh*t. Very very few turned pro from 1990-2000 and the ones that did tyipically had an impact or were thwarted by yanks ignoring them like Nazarov. That has largely continued to an extent until literally the last couple years with Top Rank, Golden Boy, HBO just starting to show a willingness to sign them or put them on TV. Post 2012 olympics is the first time where 50% or more of a National teams top amateurs have actually gone pro. From 1990-2008 you were lucky if 10-20% of the national team members went pro. Saitov, Tishchenko, Gaydarbekov, Romanchuk, Timurziev, Makarenko, Artayev, Aloyan, Selimov, etc are all top guys (Val Barker winners, double Olympic Champions, double World Champions) from recent years who never did. The style thing just pure ridiculousness you would be hard pressed to find a guy who fights like the stereotypical 1980's Soviet there's as much variety in style as anywhere else. Here are alot of the top boxers care to tell me who is "developmental level". Not to turn this into a East vs West thing but along with having just as much style variety as American fighters its way more common for Americans to have glaring technical deficiencies that one could describe as being developmental level when compared to their Eastern counterparts. Lomachenko, Usyk, Lebedev, Drozd, Kucher, Kudryashov, Gassiev, Glowacki, Chakhkiev, Kovalev, Mekhontsev, Beterbiev, Gvozdyk, Lepikhin, Kashtanov, Golovkin, Pirog, Korobov, Khytrov, Derevyanchenko, Golub, Rabchenko, Spyrko, Shelestyuk, Islam, Provodnikov, Allakhverdiev, Shafikov, Postol Klychko and Pulev would probably be the best examples you can find.
You can say what you want but everything I posted is the truth. To pretend that guys like Nazarov, or today Golovkin and Kovalev are/were setting the world on fire is pure fantasy. Nazarov, COULD, have done more but he didnt. Blame it on "yanks ignoring him" all you want. If he wanted US exposure he shouldnt have spent his career in Japan or retired a year after his only appearance here. Or fought his best opponents after they had already been defeated by rival ABC champions. Im still waiting for Kovalev and Golovkin to fight someone with a pulse. These guys have nice glossy records but outside of their hometowns and rabid boxing fans who the hell has heard of them much less the cannon fodder theyve fought? I thought we were discussing eastern block fighters coming out of the amateurs in 70s and 80s and taking on guys like Ali, Holmes, and Tyson. Not stringing along fighting no-hopers and calling that "history changing." But by all means, pretend that spending 15 years in the amateurs fighting three rounds against boys is preparation for changing history...
lol You offer as much truth and insight as Teddy Atlas. Acting like Nazarov had the option to fight on HBO, sign with Top Rank or had the ability to get De La Hoya in the ring with him, true objectivity. Guys like him were ignored by built up boxers/promoter/networks and like i said that reality didn't really begin to change until Hershman took over HBO less than 2 years ago. Pirog was openly blackballed by Greenberg up until 2012, Golovkin and Kovalev are still avoided but you go on pretending like everything is an even playing field and they're cherrypicking their way through a diminished American scene because all your best fighters are in the NBA. Golovkin wouldn't have a belt if Lebron had been given gloves as a child he'd be the first 6'8 MW Champ.
:roll: Sorry they didnt roll out the red carpet for Nazarov the instant he came out of the amateurs. And thats the crux of the argument. Maybe not today (we are actually talking about two different eras here, despite you trying to blend the two) but in the past fighters had to actually fight their way up. Very few fighters come out of the amateurs with marquee billing even in this era. Winning the European Amateur Championships in 1987 wasnt exactly going to open up HBO and Showtime with welcoming arms and a fat contract when Nazarov turned pro 2+ years later. So yeah, I dont think anyone was ducking him. Turning pro in complete obscurity had nothing to do with the United States, but nice of you to try and spin it that way. When Pirog is the crux of your argument, and the example of a guy who was supposedly blackballed that says all anyone needs to hear. I remember a decade ago when people were claiming that Freeman Barr was being blackballed and then he got his ass handed to him by Bert Schenk (probably the most protected European "contender" you will ever see). It works both ways. Usually a fighter who claims hes being ducked or blackballed is actually being protected or mismanaged or both. Such is the case with a lot of the guys you have or will claim were avoided by Americans but who in truth were kept in exclusive contracts in Europe fighting bums for their promoter/managers. The list of those guys is easily as long as the list of European amateur stars who *might* have changed history...
Hyperbole much?atsch Screw it! I just erased a long retort that would have been lost on you. In short: If these fighters faced a fraction of the obstacles that bigots like you put in their path they would never even get the chances to make their impact by feasting on bums that would not even be fighting during the American glory days of the sport.
Sure, its all America's fault... and Im a bigot... Some people just cant accept that a big fish in a small pond gets eaten by sharks in the ocean. But if you deluded morons who are quick to throw around words like "bigot" want to believe that Vysotsky was going to come out of the amateurs and beat Ali or whatever else you want to believe fine. I wont try to change your mind. I wish it would have happened, your heroes to a man would have had their asses handed to them.
Only if Lebron james and D. Rose played soccer, Murica would win every World Cup. Hell Murica would even dominate Table Tennis. Williams sisters could do that in their sleep. Only reason anyone ever beats a Murican at anything is because Murica no longer considers that event worthy of full participation.
