Olympic Champs fail as Professionals

[crold1]

Yet another Olympic champion is easily disposed of today as Solis crumbled in germany. How many Olympic champs since the 76 games Leonard/Spinks' era have actually done anything worthwhile as professional boxers? I can only think of Lennox Lewis and Wlad since the 76 games that amounted to anything close to elite, I guess joto was fairly elite even though he lost to every prime elite fighter he fought but I'll add him too for name value. But seriously besides the ones I mentioned was the last time an Olympic champ actually proved to be better than the true elites as pro's?

Note: Olympic champion = Gold medalist only (for the slower members of nsb)

Um, this thread is mis-informed.

Here's a few champs, beltholders and even some HOFers for you, since 76:

Pernell Whitaker
Meldrick Taylor
Mark Breland
Giovanni Parisi
Kennedy McKinney
Henry Maske
Joel Casamayor
Oscar De La Hoya
Koko Kovacs
Vasily Jirov
Yuri Gamboa
Andre Ward

Those are just off the top of my head.

Yeah, the Gold winners have done okay.

[Kevin Malone]

Him and Ward are doing well but he does have a point. Back in the day if you won gold you usually stuck and did some really good things, like win the real championship of the world. Now there is 4-6 major belts and rarely do we see a gold medalist accomplish great things. I actually think Olympic boxing has hurt many boxers by the way they score a fight and drill a certain style of fighting into a fighters head. Look at Povetkin for example.

It says more about the Olympics than anything else. There are a bunch of young fighters who stay out of that poor system and have no desire to be an olympic champion, and in many ways them going pro is better for everyone.

[lparm]

Um, this thread is mis-informed.

Here's a few champs, beltholders and even some HOFers for you, since 76:

Pernell Whitaker
Meldrick Taylor
Mark Breland
Giovanni Parisi
Kennedy McKinney
Henry Maske
Joel Casamayor
Oscar De La Hoya
Koko Kovacs
Vasily Jirov
Yuri Gamboa
Andre Ward

Those are just off the top of my head.

Yeah, the Gold winners have done okay.

Great list, thanks. Still Olympic champs do seem to fall short more often than not. Considering there are 10 weight division in Olympic boxing so 10 champs every games and 7 Olympic games have passed since the 76 games that's 70 Olympic champions since then by comparison the list is pretty small. I'm not saying ALL olympic champs fail but it seems a great number do as professionals.

[crold1]

Great list, thanks. Still Olympic champs do seem to fall short more often than not. Considering there are 10 weight division in Olympic boxing so 10 champs every games and 7 Olympic games have passed since the 76 games that's 70 Olympic champions since then by comparison the list is pretty small. I'm not saying ALL olympic champs fail but it seems a great number do as professionals.

A LOT of them never go pro. I think that might be what you're missing. You also have to look at all the Silver and Bronze guys with belts and even some HOFers there too.

[lparm]

A LOT of them never go pro. I think that might be what you're missing. You also have to look at all the Silver and Bronze guys with belts and even some HOFers there too.

Well I didn't include the silver and bronze simply because except RJJ I can't think of a silver or bronze medalist that was far and away better than the champ. I mean the champ is supposed to be the best so I specifically targeted them.