Can you name any HW champions that had the bulk of their amateur success at HW?

Bowe. Wlad.

 

There are verry few, and you have inadvertantly touched on an important point.

In the era when fighters had little or no amateur career before turning profesional (pre 1950), virtualy every heavyweight champion in history would have had profesional fights under the heavyweight limit.

Remember that next time you call Max Schmeling "a former lightheavyweight".

 

Frazier holmes tubbs tucker page

 

Corbett had an amature career as had Fitz but not at heavy. Louis, Marciano also did a bit as did Sonny and of course Ingo.

 

I remember Bowe winning the lightheavyweight Championship in the N.Y. golden gloves then the next year or so he was fighting as a superheavyweight and he won on DQ over Louie Saverese. I am not sure if he fought in the novice division 1st at light heavy but I remember him winning the gloves at light Heavy in the Open class. He later went to fight Lewis for the Olympics

 

Amazing that Bowe fought in the amatuers as a lightheavyweight for some time. Not just because he's a big dude, but you gotta be surprised he didn't eat his way up to heavyweight even back then.

Cooney was a N.Y. lightheavyweight too, right? He does appear a bit smaller than Bowe so in a way it makes sense.

 

Thats good question?

Mike Tyson made it to the Nationals as a heavy

Tony Tucker won the pan American games as a heavy
TUbbs probably would have gone to the olympics as a heavy if it wasnt for the boycott

 

Greg Page.
Tony Tucker had sucess at mainly light heavy, but he fought as a middle and heavy.
Tubbs was no guarantee, as Marvis Frazier, Mitch Green, and James Broad were around.

 

I remeber Bowe winning at light heavy and I remember Cooney winning at Middleweight and if my mind recalls correctly he was a southpaw before they converted him. Cooney was very tall and He KO'd his opponent in 1 rd after 3 KDs....Bowe was solid and built well and he had power at lightheavy, I remember a 3rd rd, one punch KO for the gloves..I was impressed with both.

I also remember a little fat Tony Ayala fighting for (the Lightheavy National) against a tall muscular Ken Norton look a-like, I think his last name was Kirkand, He dropped the short fat Ayala 2 times but Ayala had him down at the end of the rd and stopped Kirkland in the next, I was amazed that the short rotund Ayala was so tough and came back with power but I never forgot his name.

I also saw Ray Leonard ( he was a great amatuer, Howard Davis Jr. ( greater amatuer than pro) I saw Holmes get KO'd flat by 5"10 Nick Wells in 2 fights

I saw Vito Antufermo lose a decision at Middleweight, NY golden gloves to Eddie Gregery ( later became Mustafa Muhamad)

I used to love the amatuers 3 rds of action and the home of future world Champs

Bowe looked quicker and alert as a lightheavy but got sluggish as a heavyweight but then again he kept eating and growing wider

 

Joe Frazier is very fond of pointing out that he was always a heavyweight, and in fact took up boxing because he was getting too fat to fit his legs in his pants. He may have been pushing 250 pounds at one point before taking up the sport. Foreman made him look relatively weak and puny, but George also did this to steroid inflated hulk of muscle Tommy Morrison. Aside from Foreman, Frazier was plenty strong enough to handle himself with any heavyweight he stepped in the ring with, including bodybuilding jailbird Jumbo Cummings. (Yes, Cummings may have been robbed of the decision, but he didn't manhandle Joe like a child either, and Frazier had his moments. Big George was just a complete freak of nature, and there's been no world class heavyweight like him in the physical strength department since, of any size.)

That he actually brought his competitive weight under 200 pounds for some of his early bouts is pretty impressive. In retirement, his weight never got as high as it did before he started, and he probably owes the fact that he's alive today to his athletic background. The consequences of high blood pressure, diabetes and arthritis might well have claimed his life decades ago if he'd always been sedentary. When he says today that he's rich because he's got his health (and he'll turn 66 in four days), that's a major triumph for him, since he's defying a genetic makeup which should have sent him to a much earlier grave. Money is one thing, but how do you put a price tag on health and life?

Ron Lyle got a very late start as an amateur, being nearly 29 years old and thus fully grown when he began. (That he was already past age 30 when he turned professional makes his career just a bit more remarkable.)

 

I think Mike Weaver had fought Duane Bobick as an amateur at heavy during some point in his career.

 

On the flip side of the coin John Conthe started out as a heavyweight then dropped to light heavyweight on the advice of Muhamad Ali.