Successful boxers with no amateur background?

David Benevidez whos the youngest world champion had 8 fights, and just beat a guy whos amateur record was 165-15, twice.

It's Benavidez. He also isn't the "youngest world champion", either. He's said to be the youngest world titlist in the history of the Super Middleweight division (well, the modern SMW division only traces back to 1984). I've never fact checked that claim. He had 15 bouts as an amateur (record 15-0), not 8.

Gavril was allegedly 165-15 as an amateur but that isn't some super impressive record just based on his W/L ratio (11:1). He wasn't an amateur standout on the continental or world scene as a Cadet/Junior, Junior/Youth or most importantly as a Senior level boxer. At the Cadet/Junior level his greatest achievement was medaling bronze at the 2003 Cadet World Championships. He competed the following year at the 2004 Junior World Championships and lost in the prelims. He was good enough at the senior level to make three consecutive world teams in 2005, 2007 & 2009 despite losing each run in the prelims as well. As a Senior, his greatest achievement was medaling bronze at the 2005 European Union Championships. He was outclassed by England's Gary Barr in the semi-final and the bout was stopped in the third round (RSCO 3).

He went for three Continental Championships, too. Once at the 2006 European Championships, where he lost in the prelims, again at the 2008 European Championships where he lost in the quarter-finals and in the 2010 European Championships, where he yet again lost in the prelims.
 
Ichibang has it covered, but that's not at all true. Thailand has more medals than Ukraine and Uzbekistan, and more golds than South Korea (which used to be a figurative amateur boxing heavyweight)

At the Olympics? Thailand, Ukraine & Uzbekistan, all three nations have 14 Olympic medals each with 4 gold medals apiece. In the current medal standings Thailand edges out the Ukraine by a single silver medal and in turn the Ukraine edges out Uzbekistan by a single silver medal. This comes with a major catch, though. Thailand first sent their boxers to compete at the 1956 Olympics and have since boxed at all the Games except for the 1980 Olympics (they boycotted with the US). The Ukraine and Uzbekistan were competing and medaling as part of the Soviet Union (URS) at the Olympics from 1952-1988 and then for the last time in 1992 as members of the Unified Team (EUN), both of which boxers from the Ukraine and Uzbekistan contributed medals to. It wasn't until 1996 that the Ukraine and Uzbekistan were able to compete as independent nations.

An apt comparison would be to start from the 1996 Olympics (when Uzbeks & Ukrainians were able to compete independently) onward through the 2016 Olympics. During that period Thailand won 10 medals, 4 of them gold. But, within that same time span (number of Olympiads) the Ukraine won 14 medals with 4 of them gold, as did Uzbekistan. Thailand has made 15 Olympic boxing appearances to date. Conversely, the Ukraine and Uzbekistan both have only needed to make 6 to achieve identical results in gold medal & total medal counts.
 
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At the Olympics? Thailand, Ukraine & Uzbekistan, all three nations have 14 Olympic medals each with 4 gold medals apiece. In the current medal standings Thailand edges out the Ukraine by a single silver medal and in turn the Ukraine edges out Uzbekistan by a single silver medal. This comes with a major catch, though. Thailand first sent their boxers to compete at the 1956 Olympics and have since boxed at all the Games except for the 1980 Olympics (they boycotted with the US). The Ukraine and Uzbekistan were competing and medaling as part of the Soviet Union (URS) at the Olympics from 1952-1988 and then for the last time in 1992 as members of the Unified Team (EUN), both of which boxers from the Ukraine and Uzbekistan contributed medals to. It wasn't until 1996 that the Ukraine and Uzbekistan were able to compete as independent nations.

An apt comparison would be to start from the 1996 Olympics (when Uzbeks & Ukrainians were able to compete independently) onward through the 2016 Olympics. During that period Thailand won 10 medals, 4 of them gold. But, within that same time span (number of Olympiads) the Ukraine won 14 medals with 4 of them gold, as did Uzbekistan. Thailand has made 15 Olympic boxing appearances to date. Conversely, the Ukraine and Uzbekistan both have only needed to make 6 to achieve identical results in gold medal & total medal counts.
yeah that the olympics. I suppose that's a fair point. Still, the point stands that Thailand's amateur system is pretty strong, particularly with the military guys. Thailand has brought home quite a few medals in prestigious boxing tournaments, like the Olympics, World Championships, Asian Games, Asian Championships, and Southeast Asian Games (obviously the last one isn't quite comparable to the rest, but thailand is generally the winner in SEA Games boxing tournaments, only rivalled by the Philippines).
 
yeah that the olympics. I suppose that's a fair point. Still, the point stands that Thailand's amateur system is pretty strong, particularly with the military guys. Thailand has brought home quite a few medals in prestigious boxing tournaments, like the Olympics, World Championships, Asian Games, Asian Championships, and Southeast Asian Games (obviously the last one isn't quite comparable to the rest, but thailand is generally the winner in SEA Games boxing tournaments, only rivalled by the Philippines).

Yeah, their amateur system is certainly good. I wasn't knocking it. If we compare those 3 nations from the '96 Games onward, as I proposed, then a closer look reveals that half (2/4) of the gold medals for the independent Ukraine came from one boxer (Vasyl), and a third one from Usyk who was also trained by the same coach, Anatoly Lomachenko. Vasyl was a "cheat code" of sorts but this was evened out a bit by his forced move up to Lightweight from Featherweight. It did inflate the Ukraine's own independent gold & total medal count, however, given that Vasyl does account for half of their gold medals. If you take Anatoly out of the picture, I don't think they would've had such a strong 2012 Olympic run. He was that important to the Ukrainian national team. They begged him to stay and offered him a lot of money but he went with Vasyl to pro boxing in order to focus on his son's career. Prior to that, it was just Wlad winning the gold for Ukraine at the '96 Games in a division that wasn't even established in the Olympics until 1984.

Uzbekistan had the top Olympic team in Rio. They beat everyone in the gold & total medal counts (Cuba tied the gold for second place) and produced 3 Olympic champions in the process with Dusmatov of course winning the Val Barker trophy. One way you could look at that is that their team was great for only a single Olympic run and not much else considering that they only produced one more Olympic champ since '96, which was Abdullaev at the 2000 Olympics. So, 3/4 of their gold medalists were produced from the same 2016 Olympic team.

To play devil's advocate, Thailand has more consistently produced Olympic champions over that period of time ('96 Olympics on). They didn't in Rio, but, neither did the Ukraine. They produced an Olympic champ, Kamsing, in '96 (Floyd got robbed from advancing to the final but that isn't Kamsing's fault), Ponlid in 2000, Boonjumnong in 2004 & Jongjohor in 2008. In 2012, they had Pongprayoon, who medaled silver after being edged out by Shiming (controversially).
 
Not biggs tillman

It was me, i thought it was Biggs for some reason...did he lose to Biggs as an Amatuer....god knows where i have got this from but its stuck in my head
 
It was me, i thought it was Biggs for some reason...did he lose to Biggs as an Amatuer....god knows where i have got this from but its stuck in my head
he never fought biggs as an ammie, they made mike drop down to 201 so that biggs could fight in the superheavyweight class. Tilllman beat mike, tyson beat both in the pros. Supposedly, biggs said a lot of nasty things at the olympic camp where mike was an alternate and Mike held it against him and made him pay for it with the slow demolition of him in 88 or so. Tillman was taken out with a looping right by mike after the douglas fight. cus though tyson losing in the oly trials was because of his old enemies but Mike just didn't fight that well in that fight, he got a knockdown but didn't do much else and the rules of ammie scoring don't really score for knockdowns.
 
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