Olympic Gold Medalists from the SAME games fighting each other as pros

Didn't Carbajal win silver in '88?

 

This remains the only instance where Olympic Gold Medalists from the same year faced one another as pros. But given that Luke Campbell is in line for a WBC title shot against Loma, and that Joshua vs Usyk is being discussed as a possibility in the nearish future, this number could certainly increase.

 

There are a few examples of that taking place:

Otto von Porat - Soren Petersen
Jackie Fields - Joe Salas
Henry Maske - Egerton Marcus
Wladimir Klitschko - Paea Wolfgram
Henry Tillman - Willie DeWit
Tyrell Biggs - Francesko Damiani
Brahim Asloum - Rafael Lozano

 

There are a lot between olympic medalists, olympians from the same games and between olympic champions but between olympic champions from the same games the only ones I can think of are Lewis vs Mercer as you said and Holyfield vs Tillman since Holyfield was the bronze medalist but was the unnoficial champion in many people eyes.

 

Patterson-Ingo is the closest I can think of aside from Lewis-Mercer.

Ingo was disqualified in the final for “not trying”, and got silver (albeit retrospectively).

 

Fidel LaBarba (1924 flyweight) vs William Smith (1924 bantam).


LaBarba won by 12th round stoppage.

 

Great find!

 

I’d love to pretend I had any idea who Smith was before 10 minutes ago....

 

Taking into account that the Olympic champion is the de facto best amateur in the world, it is surprising that across 100 years or so of tournaments that there haven't been more examples where the best amateurs in adjacent weight divisions met as a pro.

Multiple weight divisions, most good amateurs who are eligible will turn pro, and most Olympic champions have at least some success as a pro. You'd think more would cross paths over the years.

Obviously the communist bloc strength in Olympic tournaments will have got in the way a bit, but even so it's surprising.

 

Lennox Lewis vs Tyrell Biggs fought in 84 Olympics with Biggs winning then in the pros in 93 and Lennox stopped him in 3.