Cuban Amateur Legend, Félix Savón

I agree with most of what you said, except that without fidel castro the boxing program in cuba wouldnt have been developed, before castro cuba did not win a single boxing medal. It was only after castro establishing the importance of sporting success in schools and for those children to develop and mature by 1972 that cuba won any boxing medals,
1904-1964 0 medals for cuba
1968 2 silver medals for cuba
1972 5 medals
1976 8 medals
1980 10 medals
etc

 

But I am talking about " boxing " in general whether amateur or pro. Yes, before Fidel Cuba never won a Gold medal but they had great Pro Champions! Cuba had Kid Chocolate, Mantequilla Napoles, Luis Rodriguez, Kid Gavilan, kid Paret, Sugar Ramos etc who dominated their divisions.

There was a " shift " when Castro took over and started to merge the Cuban talent into the amateur program. It's simple, before Castro Cuba was up there for the best Latin Country in the pros but after Castro Cuba stopped it's production of pro champions and started to become the best at the amateurs.

 

oh, thats interesting, i didnt realise cuba had as much success in the pros before Castro. However, I think that cuba is perhaps producing more quality boxers under the fidel castro sport program than prior to it?

Anyway back to thread topic, most cubans that have been succesful in the ams have been successful in the pros, and Savon is perhaps the most successful cuban Am so i see no reason why he wouldnt have made it in the pros.

 

I can give you one thing, and that is that Chagaev probably wasn't in his prime.

But spin? WTF? I guess you two think Odlanier Solis was better than Savon, too, since he also is 2-1 against Savon in Savon's alledged prime. I obviously can't help you, though.

 

Yes, spin. Let's review your post:

You trying to imply that Savon wasn't at his best at 30 years of age, is just lame. Kid Chagaev whooped prime Savon twice, fact.

 

You can judge for yourself, there are lots of videos on youtube with him.
I personally think his decline in the later part of the nineties was due to making -91 kg for so long. I think I heard on TV that he didn't go to super heavy because he wanted his three gold medals in the same weight class. Something to do with Stevenson doing the same before him, although that sounds strange to me since there was no super heavyweight class back then.