Why do Cuban boxers historically underperform at Heavyweight?

I mean, if I were stuck on an island with nothing but good cigars, good rum, and pretty cuban girls...

lol

 

I was going to post and saw this and thought ,Hmm? this is well reasoned, fits the facts, is well thought out and logical . My compliments

 

Well, that plus...

As you say, professional heavyweights need to be able to land heavy shots regularly to be successful.

But they also need to be able to TAKE heavy shots regularly to be successful.

Amateur boxing doesn't really filter out weak chins - so not only do big punchers not necessarily succeed as amateurs, great chins aren't necessarily rewarded either.

And the result is that you can have an Olympics podium where once they all turn pro, the gold medallist turns out to be the least suited to professional boxing out of the three...
Take 2016 for example - Yoka was arguably the better amateur, but Joyce with an iron chin and real power was a far better pro, as is Hrgovic was an iron chin and okay power.


I don't know that the Cuban guys necessarily fail as pros per se, I think it's more that they can look particularly good as amateurs and that leaves them with hype that it's difficult to live up to.

 

Not just that...

Size wise, Americans are more likely to be big enough for heavyweight boxing.

Could be as a result of Cuba being a much poorer country, but the average height for adult males is 5'6" in Cuba Vs 5'9" in America...


Statistically, then, population might be 30x bigger in the US, but the number of blokes big enough to fight at heavyweight is going to be way more than 30x the number of Cubans big enough.

No wonder very few make it.

 

You have never made it past remedial English class, but I was obviously talking about his as career.

 

now i want to see a 5'6 cuban cruiser/heavy.

Qawito's way