You can't deny that the weight that many Black college, amateur, and pros would fight at if they didn't play basketball or football seems to have the most E. Euros. Either E. Euro & the Soviet bloc only produce 5'10+ & 180lbs+ supermen (kinda the opposite of Latino or Asian fighters), or the idea of E. Euros training harder than Americans is slightly exaggerated. If it's simply that E.E. are better trained, we should see them near the tops of all the weight classes and not just the ones that would be the most affected by NFL/NBA draw.
Well, the division immediately south of 160 had/has 2 very good Eastern Bloc fighters in Karmazin and Dzindziruk, so it's not quite true I'm afraid But they do seem to be naturally pretty big over there
Weightlifting is a very popular pastime for a lot of Eastern Europe guys. So between that and genetics (if you ever go to northern or Eastern Europe, you'll see how tall the people generally are) it's hardly surprising that they're mostly in the heavier weightclasses.
Yep, the average guy in EE is a bit taller than the 'world average'. But I wouldn't say they are nowhere... the EEs are invaded the mediocre HW division a few years ago, other divisions are a bit stronger so the EEs are not that easily getting a world title. Of course there are some talents south of 160 too, Zaur Baysangurov, Yuri Foreman, Pawel Wolak, Andreas Kotelnik, Yuri Romanov, Kid Diamond, and even south to LWW too, but that's where the Mexicans, Japans etc. are really good and the 'EE power' it not enough... yet. But wait just a few years, EE will invade the lower divisions as well. There are some real talents at the amateurs and if the Russian professional boxing will keep on spreading (HW title fights, more and more money, TV deals etc) a whole generation will start their pro career and EVERY SINGE DIVISION will have at least 2 big talents... The EEs have already invaded the amateurs.
the reason is because there are so very few eastern european pro boxers. its a matter of numbers russia in its entirity all 11 time zones, every nook and cranny only has a small percentage of proffesional boxers active. the numbers will increase but at the moment they are small quick breakdown using boxing rec minumumweight-0 light fly-0 fly-1 super fly-2 bantam-4 super bantam-5 feather-5 super feather-7 135-7 140-15 147-20 154-20 160-20 168-20 175-18 199-20 heavys- 20 that is not a lot of proffesional boxers and the uk for example would have 8 times that ammount and america 100 times that ammount i would guess.
Yes, Genetics has to do with it if you consider that latin-americans and asians have more adequate structures and physical body type to these weight classes... Still you can't say there are not good lighter athletes in Eastern Europe such as Wladimir Sidorenko, Vic Darchinyan, Dimitri Kirilov, Yuri Romanov, Almazbek Raiymkulov, Dimitri Salita, Muhammad Abdullaev and so on...
Not really sure whether you were speaking about eastern europeans like Poles,Bulgarians,and so on or fighters fromt the former soviet union! As for the fighters from the former soviet union there are lots of excellent fighters at the lower weight classes.The talent is there.However,there is no market for them.Pro fighting is Russia is almost unknown and surely not very popular.You cant make a decent living in the paid ranks in Russia. Western promoters are not really that much interested in the lower weight classes.German promoter Kohl has signed up the Ukranian minipowerhouse Sidorenko.A classy fighter,but Kohl doesnt make any big bucks with him. The small guys are hardly marketable in the western markets.Thats the problem.
