Is prizefight showing us the best in boxing?

[AJBG]

There have been recently several threads discussing VLo (Vasily Lomachenko) trascendence in professional boxing, which I have no doubt may be highly extraordinary and far-reaching... However, if you look at his olympic performance from 2007 to 2012, you see that his dominance in the amateur arena, although extraordinary, is not as impressive as his professional record indicates (regardless of his highly disputed loss). For example, out of his 10 professional wins, VLo has officially 8 KOs; in the 2007-2012 period, out of his 30+ amateur wins, he scored only 2 stoppages (RSC). Consider that in amateur competiton, everybody fights everybody else, regardless of rankings or whether you were the previous olympic gold medalist, world champion, national champion, etc.

How is it possible that VLo can do with professional boxers what he couldn’t do to other elite amateur boxers? Even if you were to consider outclassing other amateur boxer by a differential of about 10 or more points scored via the computer-assisted method in amateur scoring, you’ll see he didn’t have the 80% stoppage he has in professional boxing. My question is;the: is VLo order of magnitude or exponentially better than before, or, is it that the talent pool in current prizefight isn’t that good?

In my opinion, I doubt it is humanly possible to improve as much as those numbers indicate, so I rather opt for the affirmtive answer to the second question. Basically, we don’t see in prizefighting those talents from other countries that produce regularly olympic and amateur world champions, and win the world series of boxing (e.g., semi-pros from Kazakhstan, Cuba, Ukraine, etc.). In fact, I’m convinced that if you want to watch real good boxing, in open competion format(everyone fighting everybody else), tune in to the world series of boxing and support your national teams.

 

[Minowafanatic]

1) There's three rounds in amateur bouts. Lomachenko has never stopped a professional fighter in 3 rounds or less either.

2) This means the strategy is different. There's no onus on you to try and finish your opponent, even if you're outclassing them. The goal is just to win those three rounds.

3) Everyone comes out firing for those three rounds too as there's no need to conserve energy for later, and no ideas about being able to beat your opponent down the stretch. So everyone is very sharp and on point for those three rounds.

4) The equipment is different. AIBA gloves are frontloaded over the knuckles, they aren't like pro fight gloves, and there were also headguards back then (gloves difference is more significant than headguards). These things make stoppages harder to obtain.

5) "everybody fights everybody else, regardless of rankings or whether you were the previous olympic gold medalist" Well it's not quite true, elite amateurs face other elite amateurs.

As for discussion on talent pools, you have to consider also that amateur boxing has far fewer weight classes than professional boxing. And then they're different sports. Not everyone who excels in one will excel in the other.

 

[aries]

^ Good answer. You pretty much covered everything. One thing I'd like to point out is that Lomachenko might have 8 stoppages on record but 4 of those are opponents who quit on their stool as a result of being hopelessly out boxed. That's quite different to an actual KO stoppage. If you factor that in then his percentage KO's is actually 36% which is pretty low. So it's not as thought he's had a sudden increase in his power after turning pro.

 

[AJBG]

1) There's three rounds in amateur bouts. Lomachenko has never stopped a professional fighter in 3 rounds or less either.
2) ...

There are certainly many differences in the rules and scoring determining the amateur and professional versions of the sport of boxing. Thus, different strategists (including technical training, physical conditioning, nutrition/dieting, etc.) should be in place too, as you stated. In fact, since the 70s, Soviet, Eastern European, and Cubans sport scientists developed specialized training regimes with the objective of bringing their elite athletes within optimal conditions to each and every national and international competition; these competitions (from national championships to the world championship, to the olympics) were scheduled in time in such a way that periodization in corresponding training was possible.

Periodization in professional boxing is not as functional for the simple reason that potential fights cannot be fixed on time with certainty and within some natural cycle for the athlete. In a way, the conditioning of professional boxer seems more traditional and antiquated than amateurs’; although, recently, we have seem certain participation of specialists (e.g., nutritionist and physical conditioning) in the professional boxer’s team in addition of the legendary technical lead trainer.

However, more concrete to the point of the thread:
- if someone classifies to the olympics, the nationals, or the world championship, in that competition they will fight each other regardless of ranking based on previous performance or who is who in the national and international arenas.
- Modern amateur boxing is not characterized by your tactical description. In fact, in amateur boxing not all punches count, and those schools that specialize in capitalizing on the exposure and vulnerabilities of a desperate and disorganized offensive tend to outperform their opponents. In fact, this is one of the major issues with the computer-assisted scoring system, and the fundamental reason of its dismissal; in the end, this system induced cautious boxer more preocupied with being countered than attacking, which resulted in a lower overall punch count, and which was detrimental to the level of excitement of amateur competition.

Another thing to consider is that RSC in amateur bouts can be produced when one of the boxer outscores his opponents by some margin (10 or more points, don’t remember exactly). What surprised me about VLo is the fact that in the amateurs he wasn’t producing this type of RSC (equivalent to his professional no-mas) as he is doing now... I suspect the competition...

I agree (actually it is a fact) that not every one transitions to the professional arena (e.g., Howard Davis, most to my surprise), But this is for another thread.