Pro boxers at Olympics ‘recipe for disaster’: Lennox Lewis

By Boxing News - 04/21/2016 - Comments

TORONTO — Forget the fighters.

Lennox Lewis believes it’s the boxing officials who need to have their brains examined.

Particularly those who are advocating having professional boxers compete at Olympic Games.

One such official is Wu Ching-kuo, president of AIBA (the world governing body of amateur boxing). Wu is pushing hard to have pro boxers allowed into the Olympics, as early as this summer in Rio de Janeiro.

It’s become a very hot topic in world Olympic sport and perhaps no one is more qualified to express an opinion on the topic than Lewis – who won an Olympic gold medal as an amateur and numerous world titles as a professional.

The Kitchener-raised Lewis, who is now based out of Toronto and working with local promotion firm Global Legacy Boxing, is not impressed with the plan to include pros in Olympic Games.

“I think it’s a recipe for disaster,” the former undisputed heavyweight champion of the world told Postmedia on Tuesday. “It’s bad. You’re going to be putting a lot of boxers in danger.”

Wu has made the point that boxing is one of the few sports at Olympic Games that does not yet feature professional athletes. Basketball does, as does hockey at the Winter Olympics.

But Lewis makes this point: If you have a team of American professional basketball players taking on a team from another country that does not include any top-line pros, the game will likely be one-sided.

But in boxing, if you have a Floyd Mayweather (U.S.) or a Gennady Golovkin (Kazakhstan) fighting an inexperienced amateur qualifier from another country, the contest would not only be one-sided, the bout could result in serious injury.

The difference between top pros and amateurs in boxing is profound, and it wouldn’t take long for a slew of serious injuries, or worse, to occur at Olympic Games.

At this point, not all nations have agreed to send pros to Olympics. What makes the scenario even more daunting, said Lewis, is the fact that male boxers will no longer be wearing head gear at Olympics – although AIBA claims (somehow) that it’s safer for boxers not to wear head gear.

“When a young kid goes to an Olympics and competes for his country and he goes up against a professional, he has no chance whatsoever,” said Lewis, who competed for Canada at both the 1984 Los Angeles and 1988 Seoul Olympics (where he won the super-heavyweight gold).

“He can learn from the experience, yes. But he can never prepare for it because the pros have the benefit of age and experience. The biggest chance he has is to get hurt.

“How does this plan make boxing any better?” added Lewis. “It can only make it worse. It just comes down to (AIBA) wanting ultimate control.”

Lewis said AIBA risks bringing a ton of negative publicity to the sport by allowing pros into Olympics.

Imagine, he said, if a professional world champion competed in Rio, drew a relatively inexperienced amateur, and beat up on his opponent and a fatality occurred.

The sport, he said, might never recover.

While the qualifying process for Rio is already underway, there is movement by the AIBA to give each individual national federation the opportunity to select whomever to send.

At this point, Canada has only qualified one male boxer for the Rio Olympics (Toronto light-welterweight Arthur Biyarslanov).

Lewis said the idea of including pros at the Olympics is all about AIBA controlling the sport at both levels – amateur and pro.

The notoriously corrupt federation has waded into the pro game with two organizations, APB (AIBA Pro Boxing) and the World Series of Boxing.

One of the attractive aspects of Olympic boxing, in its current form, is the buzz it creates for the young amateurs who turn pro after the Games.

One example was Toronto light-middleweight Shawn O’Sullivan, who won silver at the 1984 L.A. Olympics, and already had a huge fan club in place as soon as he turned pro (though O’Sullivan’s pro career went south when he was matched up too early against dangerous Simon Brown, who became a two-time world champ).

Lewis, who retired in 2003, is back spending the majority of his time in Toronto working with Global Legacy Boxing president Les Woods to help bring back boxing to the GTA in a major way.

GLB’s next card is on Friday night at the Bluma Appel Theatre, featuring Brampton cruiserweight ‘Dangerous’ Denton Daley, 14-1-0, facing Alejandro Emilio Valori, 20-9, of Argentina.

Daley lost to Youri Kayembre Kalenga of the Congo last year for the interim World WBA title but has won twice since and is looking for another world title shot.

Also featured on the card is Toronto super featherweight Sandy Tsagouris, 13-2, who faces Claudia Andrea Lopez, 24-8, also of Argentina.