Would the Soviet sports machine have taken over boxing had they allowed their Boxers to turn pro?

There’s a big difference between success and taking over.

No, they would not have taken over. And probably drug testing would have needed to become more prevalent to keep the Povetkins at the gate. (USSR/Russia have had a systematic drug cheating system in place for decades.)

I don’t think they’ve taken over now. So why or how would they have done so if they allowed pros earlier? No doubt some of them would have won titles, but they wouldn't have run roughshod over the whole world scene.

 

lol NOPE they only know how to train guys who fight like amateurs. America has years and years of pro training expertise, today’s fighters being borderline paid amateurs has made things complicated. If the soviets brought Miller, Whitey, Clancy and Goldman those real trainers over and paid them USSR government big bucks to teach boxing to others full time and train trainers well no duh any country could make that happen or even if it was just full time government funded guys teaching round the clock for decades creating pro fighters of course they’d “take over” it’d be a state funded enterprise… in the real world though? They made amateur fighters who wouldn’t survive in the “old days” imagine Bivol or Artur vs Spinks, Moore, Charles or Qawi… Tszyu vs Robinson? Duran Or Armstrong?

 

Didn't our amateurs compete on equal or better footing to theirs back then? If so, I don't think they'd dominate the pro game, either.

 

I guess my point is, if their machine couldn't produce guys to consistently beat our amateurs back then -- even though that's what it was designed to do -- then why should we believe that their machine could produce guys to beat our pros?

 

They def would have brought in great fighters who if given the right experience would have done very well in the pros especially in the heavier divisons. Just look at what great amateur's like the Klitschko, Usyk, Golovkin, Lomachenko have been able to achieve so far and there were just as many great fighters back then who never got a chance to shine.

 

I seriously doubt that USSR was the only faction doping. PED's were firmly entrenched in gym culture by the 1960's. I'm afraid that if we knew what could be known about US fighters from the Golden Era we would be gravely disappointed.

 

Im gonna say no. Most Eastern Euros are incomplete fighters.

 

More or less this. They may not have "dominated" but they would have done well.

 

They have always be pro's as far as I'm concerned.

 

None of the underlined are Russian.

 

Bivol, Usyk, Loma and Kostya off the top of my head are all respectfully 1 dimensional and amateurish in there style compare them to Olivares, JCC, Marquez, Floyd, Starling, Curry... it's black and white.