would nick wells have been an actual contender if he went pro alot earlier?

..i've written about nick wells several times and i won't get into the hows and whys he didn't have a successful pro career.....i jiust want to make one point.... the fellow who said wells was not a devastating puncher and even the one who said he had good power...i have seen a lot of fighters over a lot of years....and nick wells was one of the hardest hitters of them all. he may even have hit harder than bob satterfield. like satterfield he faded if he didn't get his guy out early...though satterfield didn't fade as early.

 

..i have always been puzzled as to why nick wells didn't go farther as a pro. it's not that he failed to reach the top....he failed to get to any rating at all as he had such a poor record. maybe you're right...maybe he just burned himself out when he was an amateur. while scoring all those kncokouts as a simon pure may give the impression that he hadn't had to fight many rounds then, his style was so intense...charging right out and landing his big bomb could have drained him more than taking it a little easier. i just don't know.

 

...nick, as i have written before..i just don't know. i told rollie schwartz i thought your dad was the hardest hitting amateur i ever saw...and rollie pretty much agreed, and he had seen everybody. maybe he did burn himself out.....maybe it was a problem in getting into condition...whatever... i have to think that awesome power would have followed him into the pros...i just wish he had done better so more people would have seen him. he'd have been one of the most exciting heavies ever and perhaps could have gone all the way.

 

Amateur success and accomplishment just doesn't necessarily translate into professional success. Clint Jackson and Davey Lee Armstrong were the most accredited members of the 1976 US Olympic team in Montreal, yet neither managed to win gold, and both had mediocre professional careers. Howard Davis, Jr. won the Val Barker Cup for those games, and never won a professional world championship.

From what I gather, the fact that Wells stopped most of his amateur opponents hindered the development of his stamina and endurance horribly. If he passed up an opportunity to be guided by the well connected Lou Duva, then that's a fantastic error in career judgment. Taking on a distance oriented veteran stylist like Mike Koranicki after just four quick knockout wins (none longer than the amateur limit) is just plain madness. (Anybody who's seen the tape of Koranicki ruining the career of Kallie Knoetze knows what I mean.) Maybe he simply never had the heavyweight chin to compete at the world class professional level either.

Competing in the armed forces means that he was probably required to wear headgear, not necessarily an advantage for one aspiring to punch for pay. Less concentration is applied to trying to defend against head shots, and the impact of such blows can tend to be muted when they do connect. It can be a rude shock to then perform without this protective equipment.

 

Disgusting. Might the sins of the father, Tinky Winky, be visited upon his son, Brock?

Fort Worth produced the Curry brothers, and Gene Hatcher. Where the hell was Dave Gorman when Nick turned pro?

 

I know of Brock just by idly surfing online. Also, I have a girlfriend from the area (Denton, to be exact, although she also had family in Fort Worth), and while she's not a fan, knowing her has spurred me to know a little more about the area she originated from than I might otherwise learn. (In fact, the laptop and accessories I'm using were a Christmas gift package she bought me a few years ago.)

While I don't know when Gorman got started in the business, he was already a distinguished looking gentleman when Mad Dog and the Cobra became famous, so I imagined he must have been around for some time before that.

 

Ron Lyle turned professional when he was already 30. In his fifth fight, he went the five round distance with Leroy Caldwell, a cagey stylist with little power. Win or lose, Caldwell would have been a great experience for any rising prospect. As hard as Lyle hit, he was matched with low risk veteran opponents like Leroy Caldwell, Manuel Ramos and Bob Stallings, who could take him the distance, and this paid huge dividends as his career progressed. Just having the background of having won over ten or 12 rounds can provide a world of confidence, and no amount of training can take the place of being extended like that. (Koranicki might have been such a building experience with proper preparation and training. The fact is that Groom never amounted to anything in boxing. Too bad it was at the expense of Wells that we discovered Groom was clueless.)

 

Nic was something else before turning pro but.....I saw him at his best in the finals of the '72 National Golden Gloves after ko'ing easily the 3? he fought to get there and then Duane Bobick just took him apart both technique and powerwise. The final punch was a right hand to Nic's chest that put him down for good. I thought at the time that Nic might make an exciting pro for awhile but never be able to hang with the upper twenty or so guys.