After Rademacher got blitzed by Patterson in '59, the conventional wisdom was that amateurs needing a lot of seasoning before being great pros. With the exception of a couple of obscure Thais, (who had years of experience as kickboxers), this held true until Davey Moore won the JMW title in his 8th pro fight. He was rushed as his career was basically ended by Duran. Lomachenko with a title shot in his 3rd fight and a win in his 4th bucked this trend. I saw one guy who could have one a title earlier than that, maybe in his debut. Instead he fought on and in nothing fights and bled out his prime before getting a title shot a 28*. Here is his 3rd pro fight... *(Probably much older). [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuNObaXUIt0[/url]
Biggs was actually starting to regress before he fought Tyson. I think his handlers knew this and put him in with Tyson before someone else beat him. He had much trouble with faded Snipes and Bey in 1986-1987. He looked good against Tillis and Sims earlier.
Pete Rademacher fought for the heavyweight championship against Patterson in his very first pro fight. Joke was, he scored a knockdown.
Correction: Lomachenko got a shot in his 2nd, won one in his 3rd. It seems many Eastern Europeans and Japanese are on course to continue this trend. Kosei Tanaka earned one in his 5th, Naoya Inoue got one in his 6th, and Takuma Inoue, Artur Beterbiev, Oleksandr Usyk, Sergey Lipinets, Denys Berinchyk, and others are poised for shots soon.
Although it of course never happened, my guess is that if things could have been ironed out, Teo Stephenson would have gotten a title shot in his first pro fight probably against Ali.
I've never saw the problem with it. I'd pick many top amateurs to beat the top pros in their weight class if they met, so there's nay problem with it from me. For avid followers of all aspects of the game they can pretty much be "dream fights", too. You know, can *insert top ammy* take the rough, tumble and ruggedness of *insert physical pro here*?
