So i was wondering considering as soon as east euros were allowed to compete as pros and inside a decade came to dominate the Heavys at least, were there a ton of lost greats that never got the chance to become great ? Black fighters were denied the chance in america because of the color line early on and then dominated once giving the chance, i just wondered what do you think would have been the history had there been no iron wall ? Ali and louis both did there "bum of the month" fights, though i know many they did fight there were not really bums, while they waited for the better guys to come around again etc, imagine the east euros had been pros, would america still have dominated as much ? I know being a pro and fighting as a non pro are very different, but the modern scoring in the non pro game now, is a lot different from the old style is it not ?, did not the east euros and russia etc do well in the olympics and worlds and other events against the west before they were allowed to fight as pros Any guys you think would have done any good as pros ?, any one who could have upset the western fighters and been talked about on here as highly regarded as many of the western greats ??
Dominating isn't really true outside of Wlad and Vitali. I think the real loss has been the Cuban's Stevenson and Savon more than the Soviets, they were the true amateur stand outs who could have been great. You have to remember American's were often winning the Olympics in the past
Actually after looking it up the only ever Soviet Olympic Gold winners at HW or SHW were Wlad and Povetkin, the list of HWs 1908 A.L. Oldham, Great Britain 1920 Ronald Rawson, Great Britain 1924 Otto von Porat, Norway 1928 Arturo Rodriguez Jurado, Argentina 1932 Santiago Lovell, Argentina 1936 Herbert Runge, Germany 1948 Rafael Iglesias, Argentina 1952 H. Edward Sanders, USA 1956 Peter Rademacher, USA 1960 Franco De Piccolo, Italy 1964 Joe Frazier, USA 1968 George Foreman, USA 1972 Teofilo Stevenson, Cuba 1976 Teofilo Stevenson, Cuba 1980 Teofilo Stevenson, Cuba 1984 Henry Tillman, USA 1988 Ray Mercer, USA 1992 Felix Savon, Cuba 1996 Felix Savon, Cuba 2000 Felix Savon, Cuba 2004 Odlanier Solis Fonte, Cuba The list of SHWs 1984 – Tyrell Biggs (USA) 1988 – Lennox Lewis (CAN) 1992 – Roberto Balado (CUB) 1996 – Wladimir Klitschko (UKR) 2000 – Audley Harrison (GBR) 2004 – Alexander Povetkin (RUS) 2008 – Roberto Cammarelle (ITA)
The comunist black countries were certainly producing champions before they became comunist. Make what you will of that.
stupid stupid, ******ed thread with little in the way of substantial argument. compare the U.S. amateurs' performance in recent times to the 60s,70s,80s etc. and see if there is any correlation.
Stupid stupid response. The thread is basically about opinions of Soviet boxers who could have done well in the pros if given the chance. Why so touchy on the subject? Victor Ageev and Igor Vysotsky are a couple that come to mind. Imo these guys would have been forces in the pros.
It's my humble opinion that there's 3 basic criteria that are generally met before any group (ethnicity/country/etc) can produce excellent fighters consistently: 1) That particular group is downtrodden/marginalized in socioeconomic power. 2) That group/country values fighters 3) There's access to good coaching If all 3 are there, there's going to be a steady supply of good boxers. In the case of the Iron Curtain, the biggest question mark there is one that exists today for not only most countries, but even cities in the U.S.- and that's the access to quality coaching. It takes time for world-class professional coaches to develop, and when it does happen, there's only so many guys one trainer can take on. That means someone's gotta make the move in the meantime, and it'd be the fighters needing to pack their bags because they ain't getting Cus D'amato to train guys in Siberia. The best prospects from eastern Europe would've had to relocate to the U.S. (like a number of them still do today. Other than the U.S., Germany's the usual landing spot for them) for the top-level professional coaching, all during a time when there were significant political tensions between the nations and a big cultural difference. Regardless of how we cut it, the odds are greatly against their potential getting reached. We're still not that far beyond the propaganda-laden messages of "us=good, commies=evil". Even today, it's still a tough sell for fighters of current/ex-communist countries fighting in the U.S. It'd have been a much tougher road for even the best amateurs from communist countries to have successful world-class pro careers 20-60 years ago, even if their talent warranted it. On one hand, they'd probably need to come here for the best training, but on the other, good luck finding a great American trainer who'd be willing to take on the project of making a Communist into the Heavyweight Champion of the World. If we completely scrap all of the cultural differences at the time that would make it practically impossible for them to reach their potential even if they could turn pro, I see no reason why there wouldn't at least have been contender-level fighters being turned out regularly with the occasional champ- provided the coaching was there, of course.
Since 1988, if you medal gold or silver at heavyweight of super heavyweight, there is a pretty good chance you become at least an alphabet champion.
Still it makes a change from the same threads posted here time and time again. Calm down dear just asking if there was some greats lost to the world, hardly a crime was it ?
No your thread is a good one man :good The idiot that had a problem with this thread ...I think we know why he does. :yep Look at some of the dipshits previous post :thumbsup
