During the late 80's/early 90's, there was a young prospect from District Heights Maryland named Jamal Hinton. He was a product of the Kronk Gym and trained under Emmanuel Steward. He fought at super Bantamweight, and I can remember seeing him win the WBC's continental America's super Bantamweight crown against a fighter named Robert Shannon around 1989. I googled his name and saw that he retired in 1992 for religious reasons, and left the ring with an undefeated record of 22-0-0-17. Anyone here anything else about him, or even remember him for that matter?
From the couple of fights I saw, he looked quite well schooled, although a bit skittish sometimes, but he never was tested against any class. If his heart was not in the sport, he did the right thing quitting. As has been said; one mistake in boxing, you do not go fifteen-love down you can get KO'd.
I don't know exactly how good Hinton was, nor what he might have become had he continued. I do know however, that from what I saw of him, he had a fair amount of talent and had mastered some the basics fairly early in his career. Steward had him well trained. I watched him defeat a tough trial hoarse named robert Shanon in maybe his 10th or 11th pro fight. He certainly looked like he a potential, but who knows where it would have taken him? Given that the Super Bantamweight division was not exactly jumpin' with talent in those days, I think the prospect of him becoming a champion or even just a top contender, was a reasonably attainable goal.
I am pretty sure he was on the fringes of the top 10 in Boxing Illistrated, KO, Boxing World etc... With hindsight a bit too quickly?
Funny, I was looking up the name of the guy because I met his Dad at one of the local gyms. He looks good and I would have never thought he was in his 40's like myself. Dad still talks about how he would have fared if he continued...
Bump. Just read about him in a few articles about the 88 Olympics. How good was he/could he have been?
