Who's the greatest amateur ever?

2558 Views 78 Replies 22 Participants Last post by ThinBlack, Jun 8, 2013

JamieC

Discussion Starter · May 9, 2013

Who is the best amateur boxer ever? You can judge it how you want, be that medal haul or performance or whatever. Is it Papp? Stevenson? Savon? Kindelan? Or maybe even Rigondeaux or Lomachenko? Or do people think people like Ray Leonard, Whitaker or Roy Jones etc deserve an honourable mention for good perfomances in Olympics?

Personally I favour ones that consistently perform over various tournaments but can't pick a no. 1, if pushed I'd say Papp

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· #5 · May 9, 2013

In terms of statistics Vasyl Lomachenko is probably #1. I believe he had almost 400 odd fights with one loss against Albert Selimov? Which he avenged?

That's otherworldly if true, though I'm a bit skeptical of it since there's no way we can verify it. There's footage of him boxing in his teens, who's to say he didn't pick up a few losses as a kid?

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· #8 · May 9, 2013 (Edited)

JamieC said:
ye he avenged it at the next olympics emphatically and faced him again recently, he won but it was a messy tricky fight

True but surely somebody would have said something? He's a star in Ukraine so somebody would have stepped forward? He is class so it wouldn't surprise me if he never lost but as you say starting out as an amateur it's hard not to have a patchy record first few fights at least

Yeah I suppose, if I had defeated Lomachenko when we were 11 or something and he came out stating publicly that he only ever lost to Selimov I'd be fuckin' pissed. :lol:

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· #12 · May 9, 2013

A guy over on ESB swears by Lomachenko, man. Absolutely swears by him. Thinks he could fight Adrien Broner right now and be victorious or at least be highly successful. He constantly says that Vasyl has the best mixture of offense and defense in the history of the sport. Yeah, the entire sport. He's never even had a professional fight yet and he's being not only compared to the likes of, say, Pernell Whitaker, but touted to mix offense and defense at a higher level.

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· #13 · May 9, 2013 (Edited)

lufcrazy said:
Double Olympian in 2 divisions? Only 24? Still plenty of time to have a pro career, what's he waiting for?

He's competing in the WSB now which I think is great, he's getting professional experience against other top amateurs. Much higher level of competition compared to the mandatory cans that a prospect usually fights. Hopefully we won't have to sit through the ham n' egger shit that we usually have to.

Apparently he's signing with a top American promoter and turning professional when this WSB season is over.

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· #15 · May 9, 2013

lufcrazy said:
When is the wsb season over? I don't have a clue how that works at all tbh :lol:

Fairly soon, mate. Vasyl's fighting in the final in a while, I think. Loads of people are wishing him luck on his Twitter and shit, so maybe this Saturday? :conf You need to watch all of his bouts. He genuinely is stunning, especially against Valentino. I mean, these guys are/were top players in the amateur game and they're made to seem useless against the guy.

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· #18 · May 9, 2013

Papp deserves a mention.

Tarver was brilliant in the amateurs.

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· #21 · May 9, 2013

JamieC said:
I'd say that was me but I dont go on ESB anymore :lol: I think he's unbelievably good, he'd slot into the top 5 at lightweight within 2-3 bouts if he wanted and I'm serious. It helps its a poor division, but he could make super feather as he only moved up to lightweight to compete in Olympics after they scrapped his weight and he'd decimate that division as it's even worse. He's not going to learn much as a pro now, he's done it all, just get him in at top level asap.

Definitely wasn't you I don't think, this guy's name was dealt_with.

Very intelligent poster, I just felt he was over the top when it came to Lomachenko.

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· #24 · May 9, 2013

JamieC said:
Im completely sold on Lomachenko, everything he does is textbook, assuming he has ok stamina over 12 he could take on Broner/Burns/Vazquez within 5 fights and I'd back him. I think in cases like him you've learnt practically everything by the time you turn pro, you've faced every style and he's won comfortably most of the time. Just like Rigo, he easily beat Donaire and he only had a few fights as a pro against no-one that would test him as you don't need them when you're a top amateur for years like that

True. Still though, you think Rigondeaux would have tooled Donaire like that in his second or third professional fight?

I wouldn't, anyway.

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· #26 · May 9, 2013

JamieC said:
I absolutely do. What did he learn in the fights in between? They were just run outs for him. His conditioning was not an issue in the Donaire fight so if we assume he trained like that for Donaire if he had had him for his second bout then the result would have been the same

What did you think of the Cordoba fight?

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· #30 · May 9, 2013

How did Benitez fit in so many amateur bouts considering he won his world title at such a young age?

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· #32 · May 9, 2013 (Edited)

I never thought Rigondeaux was behind in the Cordoba fight if I'm being honest. Don't understand the split-decision at all. I went to score it believing it was controversial or something and stopped scoring after a while.

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· #35 · May 9, 2013

Nah, I'd have to vehemently disagree with somebody placing Rigondeaux at #1. Why should we rank him above Juan Manuel Marquez, y'know? Marquez just stopped Manny Pacquiao, a top 5 P4P boxer at the time I believe after he was robbed of a victory against P4P top 10 Timothy Bradley.

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· #37 · May 9, 2013

:lol: Don't put yourself through it, man. You've already watched John-Marquez this week.

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· #40 · May 9, 2013

JamieC said:
True I think Marquez gets criminally underrated and should be at least no 2. However, unlike weight rankings p4p is based purely on who you think is the best boxer in the world regardless of weight and names on their slate is only an indicator rather than a criteria, or at least thats how it was intended. But just to make clear I wouldn't put Rigo above JMM and I do take records into account :lol:

Alright then. :good

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· #49 · May 10, 2013

Yeah, Papp is in the discussion. Three time Olympic gold medalist wasn't he? Pretty astounding achievement.

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