Would USSR boxers have changed the HW golden age of the 70s?

I concede that Tzysu and the Klitschko's were very much trained in the old Soviet system. Even though Klitschko won gold for Ukraine, his style was developed from the USSR program. You can even see the stylistic similarity between the Klitschko's and Tzysu. Uysk and Lomo are very much a product of Lomo's dad and have as much to do with USSR boxing program as Roy Jones Jr. You can see the American influence in how Usyk and Lomo fight. Lots of movement and feighting. Klitschko and Tzysu were very stiff and upright.

 

From who ? Eastern Europeans weren't banned from the amateurs, yet American amateurs were far more successful pre 2000s and even in the 90s EE were allowed to go pro

That surge wasn't across the board of weight classes, even today the USA has the most world champions, but the talent pool of America isn't as big as it was a couple decades ago

 

@AwardedSteak863 your whole argument is just based off one team in 1976. Consistently and usually the Soviet Union were just better at boxing than USA. The Soviets whooped USA in every other major tournament in the 70’s. I'm not going to make outlandish trolling claims like you are that one was far better than the other. But I definitely think the Soviets were superior to the USA.


A couple of examples of stars from the 70's


Vyacheslav Lemeshev won Olympic Gold and the Val Barker Trophy aged 20, with 4 of the 5 wins at the Olympics by KO. You can see the videos of the fights on youtube. It's probably the most impressive performances by any Olympic Boxer ever. Marvin Johnson (USA) as a pro was 2 x World Champ and Hall of Famer, and Lemeshev went through him like he was NOTHING.


Igor Vysotsky beat the legendary Teofimo Stevenson twice, including one by KO. And knocked out future world pro champion Tony Tubbs(USA).. Cuba were that scared of him, Stevenson wasn't going to go to the Olympics in '76, yet when Vysotsky pullled out with a bad cut.. they suddenly sent him.

 

@AwardedSteak863
What USA Amateurs were greater than Boris Lagutin? Or Valeri Popenchenko, Vyacheslav Lemeshev, Vladimir Yengibaryan?

Or Vasily Lomachenko? ( yes it's the same)

 

They weren't though, in reality. It's not truthful when you look deeper at the statistics.

USA have competed in boxing in 25 Olympic Games. Soviet Union competed in boxing in just 9 Olympic Games. And In the earliest Olympic Games there were only a very small number
of nations competing . These are the main reasons for USA being ahead in the all time medal table. Hell, the first ever Olympics with Boxing, USA were the ONLY country competing!

Didn't you see my earlier posts. I literally proved Soviet Union were more often than not better than the USA in major tournaments.

I'll post it for you again..

The medal count tables of all the major tournaments at Boxing where both the Soviet Union and USA both entered and competed against each other.

Olympics at Boxing
Olympics 1952, Soviet Union 7th, USA 1st
Olympics 1956, Soviet Union 1st, USA 3rd
Olympics 1960, Soviet Union 4th, USA 1st
Olympics 1964, Soviet Union 1st ,USA 4th,
Olympics 1968, Soviet Union 1st, USA 2nd.
Olympics 1972, Soviet Union 2nd,USA 6th
Olympics 1976 Soviet Union 6th, USA 1st.
Olympics 1988, Soviet Union 4th, USA 1st.

World Championships at Boxing (which started in 1974)
World Championships 1974 Soviet Union 2nd, USA 3rd,
World Championships 1978 Soviet Union 2nd, USA 10th
World Championships 1982, Soviet Union 3rd, USA 2nd
World Championships 1986 Soviet Union 3rd, USA 2nd
World Championships 1989, Soviet Union 1st, USA 4th
World Championships 1991 Soviet Union 4th, USA 5th

Final Result = Soviet Union 8 USA 6.
Soviet Union bettered the USA 8 times out 14 of when they both competed at the same major tournament.

Soviet Union were better.

 

Lomo fought for Ukraine not the USSR. Completely different programs and philosophy. If you are going to claim post USSR Ukraine in your argument, I might as well claim Puerto Rican fighters in mine.

If we are talking just amateur boxing, Donald Curry, Pernell Whitaker, Ray Leonard and Mark Breland for starters.

I'm kind of done with you man. You tried to call me out with with your fake profile and bull**** take but you simply have no argument.

There is no way that the USSR produced better fighters than USA boxing. The amount of world champions/hall of famers that came out of the US program will never be duplicated and Ukraine, Kazakhstan, etc. are way better off developing their own talent than being controlled by that ****ed up government of oppression.

 

You proved nothing you ****ing clown. The best USA and British fighters turned pro and didn't sandbag like the communist countries. The best USA fighter's would slaughter the best Soviet fighter's.

 

In the Olympics, it's not like they dominated. Patterson, Michael Spinks, George Foreman, Joe Frazier all beat Soviet boxers in the Olympics.

 

I don't agree, i would consider the entire history of the Olympics because the soviet union weren't the only ones competing and boxing continues to add countries, world boxing added 17 last year

The Soviets couldn't stop Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier and George Foreman from winning gold at the Olympics as a prelude to the 70s, matter of fact Foreman destroyed a soviet, so just based off the premise of the thread you're interpretation is false. If you think you are correct then tell me, which USSR heavyweight was going to dominate the 70s HW division had they went pro ? Because if I remember right Teofilo Stevenson was a Cuban.

Which soviet do you think would have beaten Sugar Ray Leonard ? Limasov couldn't do it, and even in the modern era US has more world champions in the pros than any other countries

 

The Golden Age of the Heavyweight division was the 1990's. It certainly wasn't the 1970's, and definitely not the latter half of that decade.

 

There was definitely a big difference between the early 70's and the late 70's. 90's were solid all the way through.

 

Stylistically, soviet boxers were very, very tidy at the mid range. However they had a major weakness against fighters who would punch with them whilst they were punching themselves (which you still see today with your typical Slavic style). Arbachakov vs Sasakul 2 is a very good example of this. Sasakul majorly shut down Arbachakov's offense by making sure to always throw and counter whilst Yuri exchanged, and shut down his jab by always throwing a right hand counter to the body. I mention this bout because, to me, Yuri was the absolute archetypal soviet style. Once this started happening he couldn't really inside fight or roughhouse to gain ground, which lead to him being very confused by the clever Sasakul. Soviet fighters very much like to 'take it in turns' exchanging and absolutely hate their rhythm being interrupted.

The same thing would happen to any soviet fighter in the ops scenario. Fighters like Frazier or Foreman would be absolutely nightmarish for them. Bare in mind that they were also never proven above 3 rounds. Absolutely no reason to think they'd some how be able to go 10 or even 15 with very good and elite heavyweights, especially in a division where toughness and grit means a lot.

 

Great post.

 

The American boxers would undoubtedly still have dominated, but we might have had some additional champions, and perhaps some additional legends.