When a long amateur career hinders you as a pro

I do think having too much of an amateur career can be a hindrance if you get entrenched in bad habits that you can get away with because you're that much better than everyone else. I think that's what's happened with Gamboa; he was also matched in such a way that his marketability increased, but he wasn't really developing.

For Lomachenko, I think it was just too much to adjust to in one fight on the fly. Once he got it figured out and opened up, he was much more effective, but it took time to acclimate. Fighting a guy like Salido, in the long run, will do him much more good as a fighter than the harm the loss does him right now. I do think there's a potential for adjustment.

Rigo, I think is too entrenched in his habits, but they're winning habits. He'll keep winning, but I think it's too late in the game for him to change his stripes mentally. That is a shame; I firmly believe he's got the physical ability and skill to implement a more pressure-based counterpunching style and still win, which is much more crowd-pleasing. Had he turned pro 5 years younger, I think he'd have it in him.

I don't think you'll ever get these guys to reinvent the wheel because of how successful and how ingrained the amateur boxing is in them, but the ones who translate the best are the ones who can adjust and drop what won't work for them going forward without letting pride get in the way.

 

Looks at the top Japanese amateurs...

...look at their success as amateurs...
...look at their success as pros...

Yeah...I think the Japanese DOMESTIC scene is better at developing pro ready ready kids than the WORLD amateur scene.

 

I'd agree with that :thumbsup

Those kids come out ready to fight and are routinely matched tough right out of the gate. I'm not an expert on the Japanese scene, but it looks like the focus is more on developing pro-ready fighters than capturing Olympic glory (another reason Murata's such a rare find).

 

Murata is an absolute FREAK occurrence. And that's why they are pushing him so fast.

Look at Kosei Tanaka, the Inoue brothers and Ioka and all were domestic stars, as was Iwasa.

The pro system needs a MAJOR change to make amateurs "pro ready" and the Japanese have layed out the blue print.

 

Could you go a bit more into detail?

Apart from Murata, i don't know jack about the japanese fight scene.

 

That's sort of my point. You don't hear about the Japanese super star amateurs because they don't "make it" on the world stage because of their style. Yet you look at Inoue, Ioka, Kosei Tanaka, Ryo Matsumoto and even Sho Ishida and you already see the development of "the next generation" of Japanese fighters.

Naoya Inoue JUST missed out on an Olympic birth, in fight 5 he's fighting for a world title

Takuma Inoue, Naoya little brother, didn't make a mark on the world amateur stage but is fighting a world ranked fighter in his second fighter (according to his promoter)

Kosei Tanaka is fighting his SECOND SUCCESSIVE world ranked opponent yet didn't achieve much outside of the domestic scene

Ioka as am amateur won a bronze I think at the Kings Cup...we know what he's done as a pro

Matsumoto and Sho Ishida (and Ryosuke Iwasa) were great on the domestic amateur scene and all are either world ranked or (for Matsumoto) will be if they win their next fight.

Compare the skill set of any of those mentioned to Americans or Brits with the same amount of professional bouts. You'll see what I mean.

 

Loma lost from a terrible gameplan and his inability to deviate from it. At some point either he or his corner had to think "we are losing based off ACTIVITY alone, lets throw 7 to 8 more punches a round"... it might have been due to unexperience, the presence of the moment and whatnot. But, he was simply too inactive during the earlier and mid rounds. He had the movement and ability to make Salido miss but had no idea on what to do after that. Other than Willie Pep (legendarily), you cannot win a round off blocking and evading only. Some might cry too much too soon for Loma, but it was really terrible gameplanning and his inability to deviate from that gameplan. He had no plan b, or c, etc. and wasnt active enough.

 

You nailed it man. :thumbsup

And yeah, at the risk of beating a dead horse, Murata's a freakin' phenomenon. It's practically impossible to overstate how rare that happening is. I'm definitely keeping an eye on his career to see how things turn out. He's still flying under the radar here in the U.S., but he won't be for long...

 

There's only one Rigo

 

Lomachenko should have canceled the fight after finding out that Laurence Cole was going the be the referee. Cole is an idiot and always screws up fights. Lomachenko took a lot of very low blows tonight and yet it was Salido who ran out of gas and got hurt late, the opposite of what I though would happen. Lomachenko will become a fine pro, he can take blows to the stomach, balls, legs, hips, etc., how he did it I do not know, but he has stamina..................

 

amateur boxing=sprint.
pro=marathon.

 

Rigo's an exceptional talent and deserves his accolades. :good

Loma's got 7 fights to tie Guillermo's achievement of winning a title in 9 fights. Time will tell, but I still reckon he'll beat that mark. :!:

 

Lomachenko is in trouble if he plans to live up to the hype at age 27 with a guy like 2014 Salido bossing him around and limiting him.

 

loma is in trouble bec he wants to challenge himself.

maybe he should start cherry picking?

*****s.

*****s always cry about fight night weight.

so was salido bigger than loma last night?