I recently watched a documentary on the 4 kings, Leonard, Hearns, Hagler and Duran. Since I am not, nor have I ever been a follower of the ameteurs of the sport, I was wondering, during the period between 1976 and 1990, were there amy ameteurs from the EE that would have given the likes of Duran, Hagler, Hearns or Leonard the business if they were allowed to turn pro?
I was curious. During that period the US fans never got to see EE fighters except during the Olympics. Would be interesting to know if a Lomachenko type was out there and never got a chance to go pro.
These were all around that weight class around that time: Boris Kuznetsov - Olympic Gold 1972 , World Championship Silver 1974 Jan Szczepański - Olympic Gold 1972, European Gold 1971 Vassily Solomin - World Championship Gold 1976, Olympic Bronze 1974 Valery Lvov - World Championship Gold 1978 Valery Rachkov - World Championship Gold 1978 Simion Cuțov - Olympic Silver 1976, World Championship Silver 1974, European Gold 1973 & 1975 Richard Nowakowski - Olympic Silver 1976 & Bronze 1980 , World Championship Bronze 1982, European Gold 1977 & 1981 Serik Konakbayev - Olympic Silver 1980, World Championship Silver 1982, European Gold 1979 & 1981 Anatoly Kamnev - 1978 Olympian who beat Sugar Ray Leonard in the amateurs.
Lemeshev could've potentially troubled Hagler, but given his struggles with Marvin Johnson in the amateurs, I doubt he'd be good enough. Szczerba already lost to Leonard, and I can't see him beating Duran or Hearns either. I don't think people realise how big an impact the professionalisation of Eastern European boxing had. Once it was legalised, the incentive to take up the sport was obviously much higher, and the training methods expanded toward Western and mainstream styles. The talent has likely always been there, but the old school, stiff and upright, by-the-book methods they used to hammer and nail into their fighters. Remnants of it are actually still quite prominent, even in superb technicians like Lomachenko. You can see him constantly resetting after exchanges, it's what he struggled with against the off-beat Salido. It's massively noticeable in the Klitschko's and Kovalev IMO, even despite their awesome skill. Keep in mind that this effect was even bigger than (on average, of course there were exceptions) and fighters like the Fab Four were too good not to break this rhythm.
it is difficult to say but there most likely would have been someone or 2-3 that would have been able to compete against one of the kings.
I tend to agree with you. I've always wondered how the boxing landscspe would have looked if the Soviet block and Cuban fighters were allowed to fight pro.
Most of these guys are featherweight and lightweight. They're not given Hagler, Hearns or Leonard any problems. We already the dog that Duran was at 135. He's favored in 90%+ of lightweight hypotheticals.
