How many amateur bouts should a boxer have before they is ready to turn pro?

I agree with you. Mayweather grew up in and pretty much lived in the gym. He was a gym rat.
His dedication to his craft had a lot to do with his success.

Credit where credit is due.

 

You mean a two-time world champion career is not good enough?

 

I was responding that Loma having an extensive amateur career alone didn't make him what he is. His success as a pro also consisted of being born with talent. & being able to transition from ams to pro. As Andre Ward said -it can be very difficult-especially if U fought extensively in the ams..it takes that much longer to undo that style or thought process.

In other words An extensive amateur career didn't guarantee Loma that he'd hold 3 title same time in six years as of today.

My age group, we saw Breland as an amateur that had nothing but ATG written all over his career. He was that good. He couldn't be beat as a GG title holder, like 4 times I think?
Wins Gold at the Olympics then named best amateur in the world. Pros sought him for sparring like Hit Man Hearns. And for people who listened to R&B music? He was like the 1st boxer we ever saw invited in this new thing called (music videos). He was HOT!

Did what we knew he could do win the WW title. But we didn't expect for him to get stopped 1st defense. Put that in today's era, how many would say he got exposed? But Like you said he won it a 2nd time which was in 1989, then KTFO'd in 1990.

Put that record today with the internet and see how we do fighters who get stopped 3 out of 3 times we call them chinny. That long neck didn't do him too much justice in the pros where the fighting is a lot different than ams.

Take away his accolades as the best amateur & I would say 2 time champ is very credible. But that wasn't how we saw his career coming from the Olympics. He was anointed brother! Today he has been a guest speaker at the HOF, but did he have a HOF career?

I don't think he under achieved as much as his style & height & long neck made him prime target for shorter stalky fighters like Starling, Davis they negated that advantage he had as an amateur which IMO became a liability as a pro. I don't remember his loss to Vaca I just know he got stopped. again.

I think Mike Nunn fell into that same category right along with Hearns. So this wasn't meant to demean Breland. I was responding to this topic- having a long amateur career doesn't equate to becoming a great pro- Claiming Loma is an exception as we can look at Gamoba, Rigenodaux, the dude who beat Lennonx & Bowe (Jorge Gonzlaez) they all did well in the ams, but it didn't translate to a great pro career. Unfortunately Breland falls into that category. He was good enough to win & defend 3 times in a 14 year career. That's not bad, but it aint great either.

 

Great response. Thanks for clarifying. I agree with most of what you said. However, I disagree when it comes to Rigo. 20/20 hindsight makes it easy to dismiss him after the quit job against Loma. However, to do so ignores the fact that NONE of the “champs” wanted to face him. Santa Cruz pretended he didn’t exist, Frampton never mentioned him, and I’ve seen video footage of the generally fearless Abner Mares explicitly admitting that he does not think he can beat Rigo. Rigo at 122 was a problem for anyone. Unfortunately, he did not get the opportunity to prove it in the ring. Before you accuse him of stinking out the joint versus Donaire, remember 2 things: (1) Rigo was the smaller fighter and (2) Nonito ran for his life in the 12th round when Rigo blew his eye up.

 

Breland had some success. He underperformed relative to expectations though. He was touted as the next big thing and it didnt work out that way.

 

I agree. However, Starling and Superman Davis were no slouches.