When did it become usual for pros to have amateur background?

I know that some of the top fighters in 30's (for example Louis and Armstrong) had amateur background, but who were the first top pros to have an amateur background and when did it become usual for pros to have one?

I'm also curious as to when boxing became legal in North America and in most of Western Europe? It was still illegal in Texas in the early 1900's, how about the rest of the US?

 

As a side fact a lot of amateur boxers in the early 1900's in Britain did not want to turn pro and competed as amateur's there whole boxing career.

 

Was pro boxing ever illegal in Britain?

 

Most (but not all) professionals have always had some sort of amateur boxing background.
The amateur boxing of years gone past may not have been structured the same as it became later, with such a degree of national and international uniformity and record-keeping, but it was still amateur boxing and the place young fighters would spend time before going pro.

Tony Galento of all people had a successful amateur background, and he's the epitome of a rough-and-ready depression-era professional pug.

Many of the old-timers did NOT fight amateur though, and some of the modern greats too. In those days, whether you had or had not any amateur background, you would still have to fight your way up through tough prelim bouts, from clubfighter status,through dozens of fights, all the way to the top. That's unheard of now, where promising amateurs and selected prospects are always groomed for stardom and manuveured more carefully and with far fewer fights.

 

In post war Germany amateur boxing was forbidden, since it was used by the nazis for education purposes, but pro boxing was not. So, many fighters had no amateur background bakc then, Bubi Scholz for example.

 

Yeah? Interesting.

 

Dont think so.

 

Gene Tunney was probably the first heavyweight champion with a significant amateur background.

He won the title from Jack Dempsey who was a creature from another era in terms of his early boxing career.

 

It was for most of the sports history, including the period when Britain was the world leader in the sport.

 

So when did it become completely legal in the UK and US? (Incidentally, it's illegal in my neck of the woods).

 

Thanks. That was the feeling I had. I was about to check it out, but no need thanks to our own "old time"-encyclopedia.:good

 

James J Corbett had an extensive amateur background.
There was loads of amateur boxing in the 19th and early 20th century.

 

I dont think so. I think Dempsey's background was from another geographical region, rather than a different era.
Tunney came up in New York, Dempsey out in the West. Dempsey may have had hundreds of amateur fights.

 

I've never heard anything of Dempsey having an amateur background. The only thing I've heard is how he fought tough guys in saloons when coming up and that he got his basic training from his older brother, who was a former pro bboxer himself.

 

Yeah. But how many of them turned pro, though? Pro boxing was still illegal for at least a part of this period.