What exactly is wrong with American amateur boxing?

It's because boxers now lift weights so they lose speed and their skill takes a huge dive.

 

For the sake of discussion: do you think this case in boxing in general? It seems like in the last 10yrs or so, weightlifting has been implemented more and more. It started with Evander Holyfield as my earliest reference, but many others have started since. Shane Mosley and Roy Jones are a couple of others I think.

I'm not a proponent of weightlifting, just curious why it might be used for success in the pros, but not the amateurs?

I have not seen much weight lifting at any place I've trained, so I'm asking more off the platform of what's in the media.

 

Combination of many factors:

01 - Boxing isn't popular in the US - Talk all the smack you want, but the commercials show you exactly who is watching Boxing. (Just for Men and Cialis)
02 - American Amateur Boxing - Never smoothly transitioned to world amateur Boxing style and continues to be very pro-centric.

I think those two factors decimate US Boxing.

 

Well you obviously haven't watched amateur boxing for years. Not many points are scored in matches now, only shots that are clear or snap the opponents head back are counted. That old 'amateur boxing is fencing' line just shows that the person doesn't watch amateur boxing.

The reason why Americans aren't doing as well is because there is not as much interest over there it seems and all the trainers seem to be old school and worry about manipulating what they perceive to be the scoring system instead of focusing on boxing technique. The eastern europeans focus on technique and strength, they're not afraid of weights and they don't neglect defence like Americans generally do. To put it simply American amateurs are weak in almost every area of the sport.