By Jim Dower: Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the two Boston marathon bombing suspects, was an amateur boxer and considered a good one with a bright future had things not turned out the way they did. Tsarnaev, 26, was killed this past week in a shoot-out with the police in Watertown, Mass. Tsarnaev captured a New England Golden Gloves championship at heavyweight in 2010 and he also won the Rocky Marciano trophy. He had plans of fighting in the Olympics.
Tsarnaev briefly sparred with unbeaten super middleweight contender Edwin Rodriguez in the past and suffered a rib injury during the sparring session. Tsarnaev reportedly showed up at the sparring session without a mouthpiece or head protection and still wanted to spar under those conditions.
Tsarnaev was said to have excellent punching power, but his inability to fight on the inside was a weakness that he had in his game. That likely wouldn’t have hurt him in the Olympics because most of the action occurs on the outside due to the point scoring system. His game was more oriented to the amateur boxing and it’s possible he could have adapted later on after his amateur career ended. Tsarnaev didn’t have a big frame, so he’s have had to move down to cruiserweight once he did eventually turn pro.
Tsarnaev was working on becoming an engineer Bunker Hill Community College but dropped out for a semester to focus on his boxing career.
We’ll never know whether Tsarnaev could have made the Olympic team because the events in his life made that impossible. He died in a shootout with the police in the early morning hours of April 19th in Watertown, Mass.
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