Amateur greats that disappointed as pros

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Off the top of my head:-

- Matt Koborov(200 wins-12 losses): 2 world championship golds, 1 world cup gold, 1 Euro gold.
Downfall: Undefeated for 24 fights until he got the title chance against Andy Lee who TKO'ed him in the middle round at .


-Odlanier Solís(227 wins-14 losses): 3 world golds, one olympic gold, 2 pan golds.
Downfall: was 17-0 until that weird Vitaly ending, but that's not really the disappointment. It was actually the 2 losses in a row against Tony Thompson Thompson's corpse that was more active than him at the time to boost.


-David Reid: I wouldn't consider him a great as an amateur but 150-15 including olympic gold and pan gold is pretty solid. The reason I'm putting him is cause he was dubbed the "AMERICAN DREAM" with so much expectation.
Downfall: Not the loss to Tito where he went the distance, but when he got KO'ed by a bum and retired a few fights after, while still ripe at his late 20s of age.




No, this is not a thinly veiled Loma hate thread, let the kid's career play out first!
 
Not saying he's great but I'm sure everyone knows Audley Harrison, who was an Olympic super heavyweight gold medalist. There was a lot of hype behind him early in his career and a lot of people thought he would for sure become a world champion. The BBC signed him for a TV deal to broadcast the first pro fights of his career, and he had mainstream crossover star potential, or would have if he didn't turn out to be such a massive flop. Got beaten badly by every top class fighter he fought and got beaten up by some journeymen too. Stopped by David Price in the first round, Olympic super heavy bronze medalist, who of course also turned out to be a flop incidentally. Plus I think Audley Harrison has financial troubles too.
 
Korobov was a good one. Chakhiev is another. Jorge Luis Gonzalez had a pretty sterling amateur record before being something of a joke in the pros.
 
Howard Davis Jr.?
definitely, he was a great ammie, mark breland is probably the biggest because he is arguably the greatest ammie ever, and he was really good, just didn't have what it took for the more physical and demanding sport of the pros.
 
paul gonzalez was also another val baker winner who was a bust as a pro. notice that it's all lanky guys who have problems with the transition. pros is more a muscle game and it's enough to make the difference, i watched gonzalez' fight with canizales and he looked like he was fighting someone four weights higher, just too skinny and weak.
 
Nobody comes to mind quite like Philip Warruinge

Philip Waruinge
"Waruinge represented his native country at three consecutive Summer Olympics, starting in 1964. He won the bronze medal in Mexico City, Mexico (1968) losing 2:3 to local Antonio Roldan and was awarded the Val Barker Trophy for Outstanding Boxer at the 1968 Olympic Games. Waruinge captured silver in 1972 in Munich, West Germany."

"He retired... with a record of having Won 14, Lost 10, and Drawn 1."


Christ.
 
"Waruinge represented his native country at three consecutive Summer Olympics, starting in 1964. He won the bronze medal in Mexico City, Mexico (1968) losing 2:3 to local Antonio Roldan and was awarded the Val Barker Trophy for Outstanding Boxer at the 1968 Olympic Games. Waruinge captured silver in 1972 in Munich, West Germany."

"He retired... with a record of having Won 14, Lost 10, and Drawn 1."


Christ.
ya, wow that's pretty bad. who knows the backstory to some of these guys though, i think breland was spoiled by the time he was a pro, was a millionaire before his first fight possibly, that kind of stuff doesn't help a fighter. Howard Davis had some sort of issues with his management which is known to suck the enthusiasm out of fighters. Paul gonzalez, for one thing, just did stupid shit outside the ring, he busted his hand in a streetfight which sidelined him. but from what i've seen, he just could not handle the muscle of the pro game. when ammies flop, that's usually the reason, that and stamina.
 
tell me about him, sorry don't know anything, heard the name somewhere.
I don't know a whole ton, but he represented Kenya at three olympics, where he took silver and won the val barker trophy (so my guess is that he was robbed in hte final, which makes sense since he faced a Mexican in Mexico), won a Bronze in another olympics and didn't medal in the third. He also medaled gold in an all africa games. Seems he went pro and moved to Japan, but found next to no success. He got a chance vs two high level guys: Carlos Zarate and Rigoberto Riasco and lost to both. That would be fine, but he lost to a lot of bums too. Of the little footage I've seen, he seemed to be a long, rangy guy with a good jab and timing, but I haven't seen him as a pro. The thing with him I guess is that, as a Val Barker winner, so much more could have come out of him, but I guess it just didn't work out.

here's his boxrec:
http://boxrec.com/en/boxer/13990
 
Korobov fought too many soft touches on his way up (or... sideways).
 
I don't know a whole ton, but he represented Kenya at three olympics, where he took silver and won the val barker trophy (so my guess is that he was robbed in hte final, which makes sense since he faced a Mexican in Mexico), won a Bronze in another olympics and didn't medal in the third. He also medaled gold in an all africa games. Seems he went pro and moved to Japan, but found next to no success. He got a chance vs two high level guys: Carlos Zarate and Rigoberto Riasco and lost to both. That would be fine, but he lost to a lot of bums too. Of the little footage I've seen, he seemed to be a long, rangy guy with a good jab and timing, but I haven't seen him as a pro. The thing with him I guess is that, as a Val Barker winner, so much more could have come out of him, but I guess it just didn't work out.

here's his boxrec:
http://boxrec.com/en/boxer/13990
ok thanks, think i heard the name but it might have been a different cat.
 
Korobov fought too many soft touches on his way up (or... sideways).
i'd never even heard of him, i swear sometimes i don't know how some of these guys have hundreds of fights and seem like they don't know what they're doing. Many times, fighters in the pros are said to have 100 ammie fights or something, sometimes it looks like they just started, not often but sometimes. in some cases it makes sense, when i heard chuck wepner had all these ammie titles and still looked like a bum, you could see how a guy 6-5 might be able to dominate a lot of guys. Still, he looked awful goddamned horrible in the ali fight.
 
I don't know a whole ton, but he represented Kenya at three olympics, where he took silver and won the val barker trophy (so my guess is that he was robbed in hte final, which makes sense since he faced a Mexican in Mexico), won a Bronze in another olympics and didn't medal in the third. He also medaled gold in an all africa games. Seems he went pro and moved to Japan, but found next to no success. He got a chance vs two high level guys: Carlos Zarate and Rigoberto Riasco and lost to both. That would be fine, but he lost to a lot of bums too. Of the little footage I've seen, he seemed to be a long, rangy guy with a good jab and timing, but I haven't seen him as a pro. The thing with him I guess is that, as a Val Barker winner, so much more could have come out of him, but I guess it just didn't work out.

here's his boxrec:
http://boxrec.com/en/boxer/13990

He briefly touches on his professional career here, citing problems with his left eye for why he stopped boxing:

https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/m/s...essional-boxer-Waruinge-struggling-to-survive

Nice summary of his amateur career and potential robberies at the Olympics etc

http://kenyapage.net/commentary/players/philip-waruinge/

Apparently his loss to Rigoberto Riasco was the first 122lbs championship fight, which is a neat piece of trivia.
 
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does Andre Dirrel count? he won Bronze at the Olympics...defeated GGG in the amateurs, but failed to win a major belt or beat quality name opponents. yes he has the interim belt right now, but he never got to the top.
 
Pete Rademacher?

He fought Floyd Patterson for the world heavyweight title in his pro debut. Ended up with a 15-7 record.
 
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