Although hes not up there with the P4P elites. Anthony Mundine is another bloke who had no amateur caree. And hes a world champion
He had enough. Usually you'll see things begin to click for guys in the 5-10 bout range in the amateurs; by the time you hit 20-30 fights you should be pretty decent and have decent skills; Toney I think had over 40 fights, which is a decent amount.
It's true as far as I know, he turned pro to pay for College. It explains why he has a couple of losses early in his career.
Not for long though. And he isn't really a champion. But before boxing he was an elite footballer and his father was a world champ, so he wasn't new to the game. Still done well having started so late. Just wish he would find some balle and stop taking bull**** fights against already conquered opposition.
Marciano is pretty much the exception to every rule. Short, short arms, does not look physically imposing more like a plumber, perceived clumsy, perceived slow. I believe he had 8 fights in the amatuers and turned pro when he was close to 25. They don't write movie scripts better than his story.
Ron Lyle had an excellent amateur career after prison. He won 1970 AAU hw title I believe. Check it out.
Theres also opposite side. If you spend too long in the Ams you might get stale, Manny Stewart always said Johnny Bumphus' legs were never right as a pro because he'd had 300+ amateur fights.
Down in Mexico a lot of guys turn pro at 15 or 16 and have a ton of "unsanctioned" bouts, so that kind of works to give them experience like amateur would have if they lived in the US or Europe.
Tito Trinidad had an amateur record of about 56-6...Very small amateur rec. As we could all see, Tito Trinidad did not have an Amateur suited style lmfao. I bet he had to KO all 56 of those opponents he beat! buahaha.
This may not be correct but I remember hearing that George Foreman only had about 30 amateur fights before winning gold in the olympics.
Anyone got an exact figure of just how many amature bouts Toney had? I don't remember him having that many from reading an article about him a long time ago so i'm curious