Cuban Amateur Legend, Félix Savón

I think a large part of Savon's success came from the fact he was a seasoned product facing much younger, technically underdeveloped opponents that had yet to fully mature. He held huge advantages in experience, skills, and size against almost everyone he ever faced. That's not to say he was unskilled, but he was basically a man fighting against fighters who just couldn't be considered men yet.

If he'd entered the pros in the mid-90s, I doubt he's able to gracefully deal with no longer having huge advantages over his opponents. A motivated Bowe or Lewis would both KO him in the mid rounds. He'd have a better shot at beating an aging Holyfield, and he might be able to outbox Tua in the pros and not get caught, but Ibeabuchi would throttle him.

A lot of gauging Savon's success in the pros comes down to how good his chin is. A lot of guys can succeed in the amateurs and hide their chin sturdiness (Tillman, Jorge Luis Gonzales, etc). If Savon had a good chin in the pros, he might eventually get an Alphabet belt, he'd be able to beat someone like Ruiz, but I don't see him beating Lewis or other top Heavyweights of the time.

 

Its true that he was facing much younger and unexperienced guys but any questions about him or stevenson turning pro will remain unanswered - his success as an amateur can't be compared with jorge luis gonzalez who was never the best HW in Cuba with stevenson and milian miles ahead of him.
Savon skills,size,power and discipline were always remarkable- question mark would be his chin when getting hit by someone like Lewis or Mercer.But i wonder how these last 2 would take Savon punches.As i said before,we will never have the answer for it.Make your own conclusions.

 

Didn't don king offer him 25 million to fight mike Tyson

 

Not as good as Chagaev

 

he would have been better than Chagaev by accident

 

The line about experience being the reason for much of the success of exceptional amateurs is a line that gets repeated a lot. I'm pretty tired of it and think it is outright false, at least to a large extent. Amateur boxing, if anything, is a young mans game, build for a high pace over few rounds. Without going into that too much I'll just point out that this is evident even for the great Cuban heavyweights Savon and Stevenson who lost several steps as time progressed. The 33 year old version of Savon who won gold in Sydney would have lost to the 25 year old who won it in Barcelona, and probably to the 19 year old who won gold in the WC in Reno.

Coming back to Savon, as you see in the sentence above, he won his first gold at 19 when he didn't have any "seasoning" advantages over his opponents. Savon's success came from the fact that he was better than the rest, even as a kid, and not primarily from him having time to mature as a boxer.

As a pro I somehow believe he could have been a bust. His conditioning didn't seem great and his chin might have been suspect. On the other hand, he was tall for his weight class, he fought below 91 kg, and he might have benefited from being able to fill up another 10 kg or so. So we'll never know but I'm not particularly sorry he never turned professional. He had a great career as it was.

 

He is Teofilo Stevenson Part II.

 

Exactly

Ruslan "the Savon slayer" Chagaev :bbb

Briggs was so skinny back then compared to how he is now BTW :rofl

 

Great amateur record

 

Hard to say. Would he be as successful if he was fighting Lennox Lewis, David Tua, a Young Shannon Briggs, Evander Holyfield, etc. He was talented though, but how much was talent and how much was him being 30 fighting Guys who are 17 and 18 for a large part.

 

I guess he lost their series on purpose then. Including their first fight when Ruslan was still just a teenager and Savon a 30 year old in his prime with a decade of World level experience. :rofl

 

he for sure could be better then Hide!

 

Savon's homosexuality could have been a factor if he was fighting in the pros. In Cuba nobody ever talked about it,only in the inner circles it was known about his sexual preferences.But here in the US, as soon as people found out, the press and the fans would have made his life miserable.And mentally would have been a factor.