DC said last night that a fighter had a longggg amateur career of 7 fights????

[heeme]

That's considered a long amateur career? I'm going into my 3rd ammy fight in two weeks and thought that was about average before going pro. Based off what you know what is the average amount of ammy fights someone has before turning pro??

 

[The Mookster]

well in boxing I think one of the Klitscko's had like 140 ammy fights. Many UFC fighters never had ammy fights. Its hard to get fights for a lot of guys, especially if MMA in their area is scarce or illegal. If you are someplace like California, you can get tons of ammy fights since there's a large population and MMA is all over.

But honestly, if you can whoop on the Pro's in your gym, you can probably be a pro. If you can't, then don't go pro until you can. If it takes you 100 ammy fights to get into your groove, well thats better than going pro after 5 fights and losing via lack of experience.

 

[FierceRedBelt]

More ammy fights the better but if you're starting MMA at 23-25 years old there's not really much time to spend as an ammy if you want to make a career out of MMA.

 

[Richard Fannin]

Depends of the time-span.

But to each his own. I had my first ammy MMA fight at 18, and now 8 years later I've had 7 ammy fights in total
(and 3 amateur boxing bouts, and a lot of wrestling/grappling matches)
but I never had the ambition to become a pro, so I took it easy, as a hobby, one or two fights a year, then one year without a fight, etc etc...

If a guy had 7 fights in one year, accumulating as much experience as possible so he can have his first pro fight without ring/cage jitters, it's different that if he had them in 3 or 4 years;
and in that case if you original goal was to turn pro, it's indeed long but not in a positive way.

I have some friends who were really good, in a good team, hanging in there with the pros in sparring matches and didn't even bother with ammy competition before turning pro.

So I don't know what to make of this comment from DC...

Just my 0.02$

RF

 

[ricanth]

DC often speaks off the cuff and is incorrect, Kenny is typically there to keep him in check...

5-10 ammy fights is average, and necessary. This could be performed in as little as a year, or longer, depending on the type of fights and the training you're getting. Some states guys tend to fight more AMMY fights, and some less, but plenty have requirements of at least five before turning pro. More importantly than hitting a number, it's getting the right fights that will make you better, amateur fights are the time to find the killers and learn, losing is ok at amateur, it's about getting better...