billy joe saunders, one of the best amateur prospects we have is through to the last 8 with wins over current european champ, Russian Andrei Balanov, and Pole Michal Starbala. thats just over a month after beating the cuban number one... not all the results are out yet, but also through to the last 16 were Stephen Smith, James DeGale, David Price and Danny Price.
great list already. are amatuers are doing very well the last 5 years. amir beat the pound 4 pound best amatuer huge roundhouse kicking of U.S vs U.K great turn out in chicago
you might know this jeff... can you still fight in the amateurs if you have started a pro career? is this the same person... http://www.boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=422095&cat=boxer
khalid yafai and james degale have both qualified for the beijing olympics by winning their semi final bouts (degale after getting KD'd in the 2nd). this brings the total number up to 6. billy joe saunders lost his semi, but can still qualify if he wins in the 3rd place playoff later today. same goes for featherweight stephen smith.
i'm not sure how degale would do as a pro. his punch resistance seems a little weak. i've only seen a couple of his amateur fights but he always seems to get hurt and have to hang on, after dominating the first half of the fight. very skilled though...and doesn't fight with the cliched european style.
Our Olympic boxing team is looking mighty healthy. Hopefully we will get about nine guys going over there to win us some medals. Who's betting that we get more medals from boxing than in track and feild.
I asked this in December in this thread ( http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showthread.php?t=35921&highlight=Saunders ) when he was listed on the Mitchell v Johanneson bill but didn't get an answer. It's definitely the same guy as there can't be two boxers with the same name from Hatfield and so I assume it must be some sort of boxrec **** up. Odd that he keeps getting listed on new bills though.
My cousin missed out on Atlanta 96 and it broke his heart - it is very tough making it into the team - nothing but respect for the amateurs.
you think its another guys record and they've just used billy-joe's name? who's ever record it is must to be a Sports Network fighter because he's fought on the marsh-matthews undercard and is next lined up to fight on the haye-macca undercard.