By Gav Duthie: There have been some great successes as well as spectacular failures over the years during the transition from Olympic stardom to professional boxing. Within the context of the career so far of heavyweight hopeful Anthony Joshua we look at the wider strategic implications of turning successful Olympic amateurs into top professionals.
There are 2 main reasons why Olympic medalists don’t succeed as a professional:
(1) Their style is more suited to the amateur game with a failure to adapt to professional boxing
(2) Greedy promoters and poor matchmaking in the early stages of a fighters career
(1) For the first time in the Commonwealth games currently ongoing in Glasgow, Scotland the amateur boxers are without head guards. It is important to distinguish that amateur boxing is completely different from professional. Body punches and aggression mean absolutely nothing and a fast jab counts as one point as would a huge left hook that knocks down an opponent.
Audley Harrison is a prime example of an amateur stylist. He boxes extremely cautiously behind his jab. He waits for smaller opponents to come in steps back and throws his straight southpaw left. He does this quite well but that’s where is talent stops. He as no heart, no chin he can’t fight on the inside and can’t handle pressure fighters.
Anthony Joshua is completely different. He only started boxing 6 years ago, aged 18. He hasn’t had years of trying to perfect an amateur style. He is learning as he goes and continues to improve. I admit he was probably lucky to win Olympic gold. His decision victories over Felix Savon and Roberto Cammarelle were very close. The Italian finalist Cammarelle has a gold, silver and bronze medal in the Olympics and he boasts amateur wins over the likes of David Price, Vyacheslav Glazkov and Kubrat Pulev. What I did like about Joshua’s Olympic performance was that if he was outmatched technically he was happy to dig in and slug it out. As he has turned professional he has improved his jab and discipline all be it against weaker opposition so far.
(2) This is the most destructive aspect for boxers turning pro and there are many examples of failed prospects due to poor matchmaking, greedy promoters and a lack of fighter hunger due to early financial gain.
Pete Rademacher – An absolute farce of a story. He won the Heavyweight gold medal in the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne. He fought Floyd Patterson for the world title in his FIRST fight and was subsequently knocked out in 6 rounds. He fought Zora Folley next and was stopped in 4 this time. His record ended 15-7-1 (8)
Leon Spinks bested an over the hill Mohammed Ali in only his 8th fight after winning the Olympic gold medal in 1976 at light heavyweight. In hindsight it was too early or a title shot. He lost the rematch and finished boxing with a record of 26-17-3 (14).
Modern Examples
David Reid – In the 1996 Olympics Reid was the only American gold medalist despite the team consisting of Fernando Vargas, Antonio Tarver and Floyd Mayweather. In only his 10th pro fight David won the 154 lb WBA title outpointing Laurent Boudouani (38-2).
His promoter Dan Goossen continued to be bold and in only David’s 15th pro fight they matched him up against over 40 fight veteran and one of the best fighters of this generation Felix ‘Tito’ Trinidad in a unification bout. Rightly many of the worlds media thought this was a mistake due to Reid’s inexperience. Reid made it to the final bell but was knocked down 5 times by Tito and suffered a detached retina. He was stopped a few fights later by Sam Hill and retired due to vision problems. He finished 17-2 (7). A wasted career.
Ricardo Williams Jnr – After achieving a silver medal at the 2000 Olympics, Williams Jnr was tipped for stardom. Lou Di Bella gave him $1.4 million before he threw his first professional punch. That was half the problem as it resulted in a loss of hunger and desire for Ricardo. He didn’t work hard in training and lost his 9th fight to journeyman Juan Valenzuela by unanimous decision. He had trouble with the law later on and completely lost focus in his boxing career. His last fight was in 2012 leaving him with a record of 21-3 (11).
Joshua Matchmaking
Anthony Joshua seems a much more level headed character and Eddie Hearn seems to have his best interests at heart. There are those who think he should already be a British and European champion by now but I think that given previous failed examples he is ticking over nicely. To have a name like Matt Skelton, all be it at age 46 on his record is pretty good after 7 fights. Hearn has also been clever in putting Joshua in with opponents previously fought by other British prospects. He knocked out Hrivoje Kisicek and Dorian Darch in 2 rounds each where as Hughie Fury could only beat them on points. He also knocked out Hector Avila in 1 round while Dereck Chisora only stopped him after 9. He next faces Yaroslav Zavarotnyi 16-7 (14) who took David Price 10 rounds in his last outing. The Ukrainian has been in with some quality opposition like Kubrat Pulev and his only two stoppage defeats came to Alexander Dimitrenko and Nikolay Valuev in only his third fight. Only a month after that he is scheduled to face Michael Sprott 42-22 (17). He is also 39 like Zavorotyni. Despite his 22 defeats Sprott is better than his record suggests. Sprott only really mixes with high class prospects these days and promoters like Kalle Sauerland use him to give their young fighters a test. Of course if you are decent Sprott shouldn’t be a problem but he has ruined many a prospects career with surprising wins against Edmund Gerber (22-0), Rene Dettweiler (18-0), Cengiz Koc (21-0), Timo Hoffman (22-1) and of course his 3rd round knockout victory over Audley Harrison (21-2). If Joshua isn’t a decent fighter one of these two should expose him but if he is then its another decent couple of tests.
The future
If he wins these I think he could fight for the British title in his tenth fight. The vacant strap was earmarked for the winner of Chisora versus Fury but with that fight being cancelled it is possible that the eliminator between Scot Gary Cornish 18-0 (10) and Sam Sexton 19-3 (7) on September 6th could be for the full title. The winner of that would be the perfect opponent or Joshua.
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