What's Kovalev's amateur background look like?

Think he got Koed in an amateurfinal vs GGG.......

 

Oh, it wasn't right there.......it was Atoev that KOed Kovalev and not GGG
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB2pBTdbXOo

 

That's bull****. He did get KO'ed once by an amateur world champion Atoev. For the rest see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Kovalev_(boxer)

 

ROFLMAO Just like Floyd he's been spoon fed & protected couldn't rough it if he had to

 

No happy background for Sergei sad to say. Cheylabinsk in the 90's or indeed even now doesn't sound like a great place (a run down crumbling post industrial pit in the middle of nowhere by all accounts). His biological father left the family as an infant though Sergei seems to have had a great deal of respect for his step-dad (who died in his teens).

His amateur boxing career was very promising, I think it was somethink like 195 - 16 in the end including I believe at least one national youth Gold, and 2 world military boxing Golds (national service still remaining obligatory in Russia, though I think some top ams may be exempted - and FWIW the Russian military is no more of a joke than it's prison system though apparently conditions are gradually improving/ become softer).

Ultimately Kovalev elected to turn pro after feeling himself overlooked by such top fighters as Korobov and Beterbiev, which he claims was more a result of political issues within the Russian Am system than actual performance. Without a mentor who could pull strings (his trainer of many years apparently died in his mid-teens leaving Sergei without anyone to 'pull strings' for him) he felt he was destined towards continually being sidelined.

As I say, Chelyabinsk in the 90s when Kovalev was growing up was I believe, no-one's idea of paradise, as the USSR imploded there were literal cases of starvation and Sergei himself had to resort to collecting bottles and washing cars to help his mother feed the family.

Anecdotes from his childhood include being robbed at knifepoint by a gang of somewhat older 'immigrants' (likely from the Caucasus - Russias persecuted minority of choice) whom he tracked down and 'did what any man would' after he grew a little and became proficient at boxing.

 

The best boxers normally has a olympic/amateur background.
To name a few, rigo, loma, pernell whitaker, de la hoya, klitschko, lewis, muhammed ali, ward, golovkin and so on

 

Yes he did he had about 90 amateur fights and yes amateur expierience does coung for something.