Most skilled boxers with zero/few amateur fights

Jeff Chandler

 

Bernard hopkins as far as i know never had a real amateur career and learned boxing in prison similar to qawi.
Algieri had no amateur boxing fights, he went from pro kickboxing to pro boxing

 

Roberto Duran has to be atop of ANY list that speaks of going Pro with little to no Amateur experience. Qawi is a GREAT example mostly because he learned how to fight in prison just to stay alive. Just so happened to be that he was good enough to go Pro and became a real threat in that division. Qawi and Duran are great stories I'm sure! Great Thread!!!

 

Joey Giardello and Billy Conn

 

JCC, Salvador Sanches, and just about any greatly Mexican or South American. They just don't have amateur systems like other countries do.

 

Ex Featherweight champion Johnny Famechon never fought as an amateur at all and he was highly skilled, especially defensively.

 

Holmes and Foreman both had around 20 amateur fights

 

I think I read somewhere that Harold Johnson didn't have much amateur experience but I'm unsure of this. If it's so then he'd be the poster boy for this thread. The guy had top notch skills and technical ability.

 

Jeff Chandler had 2 amateur fights, Kitten Hayward had 1, but Rodolfo Gonzalez and Curtis Cokes had none.

 

Billy Conn had none. And was one of the most skillful boxers of his weight class ever.
He learned his skills on the professional circuit, starting out as a welter at 15 or 16.
And he learned in the gyms and fight clubs of Pittsburgh in the early 1930s. There was a lot of quality experience there.

I'm guessing a lot of the Latin Americans who started out at 14 or so were without much amateur career too.

 

Ernie Shavers started boxing at 22! But Duran in my opinion achieved more with no amateur experience

 

Foreman won a gold medal OBSCENELY early in his career. He was the best amature in the world in just 20 or so fights. No need to stay in the minors when he was already a natural for the big time.