Why did Teofilo Stevenson never go pro?

He charged The Ring Magazine for a brief interview a couple of years before he died,[2012 ,] I don't think he was indifferent to money.

 

Yes, i remember that interview. He was begging to be paid!!

 

I think even in Cuba it is the norm to try and make a dollar for sevices rendered.

 

He was paid more as an amateur.

 

Is it possible that you don’t quite know everything?

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It is Commie propaganda Unforgiven. He wasn't allowed to turn pro, maybe didn't want to because he was surely bought up with the brainwashed mindset. He was surely pampered his entire life (unlike the other poor Cubans) like most superior athletes in Socialist countries were. If brain-dead Fidel would have allowed him to fight professionally he could have brought back the winnings to his 'people who love him' (If he even was succesful).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm thinking maybe you should go back to your Howard Zinn history books on how free markets in general and the USA in particular are the reason the world is in the shape its in today.
Greedy 'Capitalists' are bad but **** on Marxism! Tried and failed, tried and failed ad nauseum....atsch

 

Amateur boxing is quite a bit different from its professional counterpart. We don't know if Teofilo Stevenson would have learned the skills or had the drive, heart, stamina and durability to be a top professional fighter. Of course, you can say the same thing about any amateur boxer.

- Chuck Johnston

 

Stevenson bought into it 110%.

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Almost as important as food when it's all said and done.

 

You admit that he wasn't allowed to turn pro, and that "maybe he didn't want to". Also, you state that he was already a pampered athlete.
You and I both know that for him to turn pro would mean defecting from his country and living in exile from his home country, being used as a propaganda tool by an enemy country, and being portrayed as a selfish traitor in his home country. That was the reality. It's not as if turning pro was some great option for him, but it was possible.

So, his quotes are reasonable, faced with his actual choices in reality, and not just "Commie propaganda".

I do have some books but I don't have any by a Howard Zinn. I don't even know who he is - should I ? Is he good ? (I will google him right now.)

What shape is the world in today ? You've lost me here.

:huh

 

There's the rub, as they say, Unforgiven. He would have had to defect because Castro wouldn't let him turn pro. And, you're right, the Cuban government would have portrayed him as a traitor but not if he was allowed to go pro and return to his country with his earnings. But that wasn't an option. Another poster said Teflio assaulted a flight attendent for berating Castro? There you go, a brainwashed homegrown Cuban raised to hate any of the free-market nations, who actually took matters into his own hands (literally) against a female when his Marxist leader's policies were called into question.

Zinn? I apologize for that but Zinn's revisionist "history book" The History of the US from 1492 to the Present" is required reading, as we speak, for any US History 101 student across the country, portraying us as THE problem for all the pain occurring in the world today. Even other leftist-Marxist historians have attacked him for his ideas but....he's still in print and being taught around the country. Is it any wonder all the young impressionable young Gen X & Y minds have this anti-US slant?

I'm so sorry for straying off topic on a boxing site but this naive Marxist mindset that's creeping into our young people (and older) recently has me truely upset.

 

In 1959 Castro and his army after many years of Guerrilla warfare finally overthrew the American supported Cuban government of Batista.

Being a Marxist, Castro gained allies in the Communist World, and rolled out Communist values across Cuba.

 

Yeah, I see what you're saying now. I'm guessing you don't believe that anyone can have genuine marxist beliefs and opinions, rather they are all "brainwashed" ?
Granted, that's one way or looking at it. But I think that can be applied to everyone's beliefs and viewpoints. Everything is arguably dogma, propaganda. Everyone is "brainwashed". Most people form or adopt opinions based on what they are told.

You're really promoting this book.

:good

Fair enough. :good
You seem to have a certain amount of emotion invested in the subject. I'm guessing you're the same age as Teofilio Stevenson !
I could actually imagine you assaulting a commie flight attendant for insulting American capitalistic policy.

 

I agree with your general gist. Believers in the first world's 'capitalism', often have that arrogant smugness and ignorance of the realization you cannot create something from nothing. That economic growth in a capitalist country is built on the foundation of misery and suffering for others.

As for Stevenson turning pro: I do not agree with everything Castro did. But I admire his dedication to the cause of improving Cuba. And showing that not everything in sport should be about money was a plus.