No US medals at the World Champs

[HI-TECH Boxing]

The seedings for these Championships was weird imo.
Take the Middleweight division . Some how Arlen Lopez was seeded #1 when he really hasn't accomplished anything or beaten any big names. Also, his side of the bracket is not that difficult, he has an easy pass to the Final. Meanwhile in the other side of the bracket you have the four favorites who all have to meet up in the Quarterfinals. Petr Khamukov, Bektemir Melikuziev, Michael O'Reilly and Zhanibek Alimkhanuly. They have to go through each other just to get to the final.

They made qualification for these Olympics much harder. It's going to be difficult for many countries to qualify their boxers.

[HI-TECH Boxing]

The seedings seemed to make sense for 60 kg. Lazaro Alvarez, the reigning champion, is #1. Robson Conceicao, who he beat in the finals in 2013 but lost to recently, is #2. And Albert Selimov, who easily won the European Games (dominating four of the other competitors at 60 kg in the process), is #3. Not sure about the #4 seed. Don't know much about him. And how did Valentino even qualify? Got stopped on a cut in the European Championships, I believe. By the way, things about to get VERY interesting. Tomorrow, Alvarez, Conceicao, and Selimov will finally fight. Lazaro Alvarez faces Pachanya Longchin, an inexperienced kid he'll probably make easy work of. Conceicao fights Adlan Abdurashidov, who recently beat Safiullin. Selimov seems to have the toughest fight of the three. He faces the Irish kid, Sean McComb. McComb is six feet tall, so a tall 60 kg fighter. McComb, from what I hear, made pretty easy work of Lindolfo Delgado Garza. However, Selimov and McComb already fought in the European Games. McComb basically tried volume punching while Selimov timed him with counters and some really weird leads. McComb landed some good body shots, but for the most part Selimov was too skilled for him. Won a unanimous decision back in June. But should these guys continue winning, we could see fights like Alvarez vs. Valentino and Selimov vs. Conceicao.

Hmm finally someone that knows their stuff regarding amateur boxing. I agree it's not every weight class, but here is the thing about 60 kg division it doesn't really have that much depth this year. Which sucks since that's one of my favorite weight classes.
It's basically Conceicao vs Alvarez with Selimov and Valentino (two of the most experienced amateurs right now) with an outside shot.
To answer your question about Valentino he qualified because he lost to the eventual winner of the European Championships: Joseph Cordina

Actually now that I'm reading your post, it's not as bad as I thought. I still think Conceicao and Alvarez are still the clear favorites.
Selimov is getting a second wind, I thought his career was over a few years ago and now he's coming on strong. He's probably the only one I think could upset Conceicao and Alvarez.

Do you have predictions for the weight classes? Or at least the ones that finished today, since we are in Quarterfinal territory now.

Do you keep up with Junior and Youth level?

[Build That Wall]

Erislandy Savon needs to get his ass into Pro Boxing.

[Scipio2009]

I still question Lubin's decision to turn pro so early. That guy beat Toledo a few years back. Why not stay amateur and gain some experience against top guys at the Worlds and Olympics?

I don't really think the scoring system is the problem. Most U.S. amateurs, from what I can tell, just are not skilled enough. Or focus too much on being flashy. The guy who really comes to mind is Raushee Warren. Three time U.S. Olympian. Never won a fight in the Olympics. Looked pretty sloppy against Payano. Gary Russell was considered a top U.S. amateur. And in all fairness,he beat current medal favorite Robson Conceicao pretty easily at one point. But much like with Warren, a bit too much focus on the speed. Not enough on the intelligence. Top amateur nations are Cuba, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Azerbaijan, it would seem. The boxers from those nations are less about flash and more about effectiveness. Though, admittedly, Cuban boxers can sometimes have the same problem. Lazaro Alvarez and Julio Cesar la Cruz come to mind. Despite their success, they sometimes seem a bit more one dimensional than I personally like. La Cruz basically runs and taps. Alvarez throws lightning fast combinations. Both boxers usually find great success with this approach. But I cannot get out of my mind a somewhat recent fight where Alvarez was completely neutralized and basically schooled by a superior technician with more experience.

Simple. Lubin didn't want to hang around for three years, getting punched to the face and head with no headgear, when he had offers on the table to take the headgear off and actually earn good money.

[Cuban Linx]

I still question Lubin's decision to turn pro so early. That guy beat Toledo a few years back. Why not stay amateur and gain some experience against top guys at the Worlds and Olympics?

I don't really think the scoring system is the problem. Most U.S. amateurs, from what I can tell, just are not skilled enough. Or focus too much on being flashy. The guy who really comes to mind is Raushee Warren. Three time U.S. Olympian. Never won a fight in the Olympics. Looked pretty sloppy against Payano. Gary Russell was considered a top U.S. amateur. And in all fairness,he beat current medal favorite Robson Conceicao pretty easily at one point. But much like with Warren, a bit too much focus on the speed. Not enough on the intelligence. Top amateur nations are Cuba, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Azerbaijan, it would seem. The boxers from those nations are less about flash and more about effectiveness. Though, admittedly, Cuban boxers can sometimes have the same problem. Lazaro Alvarez and Julio Cesar la Cruz come to mind. Despite their success, they sometimes seem a bit more one dimensional than I personally like. La Cruz basically runs and taps. Alvarez throws lightning fast combinations. Both boxers usually find great success with this approach. But I cannot get out of my mind a somewhat recent fight where Alvarez was completely neutralized and basically schooled by a superior technician with more experience.

They're not all the same. Warren is better than you're giving him credit for. Keep in mind he was the last American to win gold at the world amateur championships in 2007. He had some bad luck in the Olympics a couple times he just choked against far inferior opposition and other times he got on the wrong end of close decisions.

Demetrius Andrade was a great amateur who should have won gold in 2008 but he got blatantly robbed.

[HI-TECH Boxing]

Unfortunately no, I don't follow most of amateur boxing. Just some of the guys at 60 kg and 64 kg, with a bit of interest in 81 kg. Speaking of which, how is la Cruz seeded below Niyazymbetov? Maybe because he lost in that AMBC competition or whatever it's called recently. I believe Oleksandr Khyzhniak fights Joe Ward tomorrow. Let's see if Ukraine can improve on its awful showing in 2013. What a fall that was.

Looking at Alvarez, Conceicao, Selimov, and Valentino, they've already had some fights against each other. Alvarez and Conceicao went 1-1, with Conceicao having the more recent win. Selimov lost a close decision to Valentino in WSB in a fight where he spent half the time clowning. That's what cost him rounds two and three. Dominated rounds one and four, but then a headbutt ended things in round five. Conceicao beat Valentino in 2013, I believe. To my knowledge, Alvarez has never fought Valentino and Selimov has never fought Conceicao. What's really interesting is that Alvarez, the #1 seed, is the only one of the four to have lost to two of the others. He fought Selimov in WSB. Did not go well for him. Lost a close round one, got dominated in rounds two and three. Won four and five because Selimov basically played keepaway. Maybe it was just the styles, but Alvarez looked clueless against Selimov. Alvarez is pretty much certain to win his fight tomorrow. Conceicao and Valentino I'm not sure. Selimov will probably win, seeing as he's fighting a guy he beat pretty easily in June. If Selimov wins that, he fights the winner of a fight between a twenty year old kid and the guy Selimov beat in the European Games final. Hopefully, that happens and we get to see Selimov vs Conceicao.

I have no idea, there are always surprises in the seedings. Some don't even deserve to be seeded but are somehow seeded.
Maybe it is because he lost, but it's not like Niyazymbetov is undeafeted in the last few years.
I'm rooting for Khyzhniak, I love to seeing surprises lol. It should be a good fight though. I wasn't expecting much from Khyzhniak or the rest of the Ukrainian team (for the most part it was correct, it sucks that the Ukraine weren't able to follow up after their 2012 success), but Khyzhniak fought his heart out in the first fight, hopefully he continues like that.

It's not the first time Alvarez has looked clueless, remember his fight at the 2012 Olympics? John Joe Nevin made him look silly. Alvarez is good, but he is beatable. You can't let him fight his fight and if you can make him go forward the better. Alvarez just seems to throw punches just to throw and not having any real purpose.
Selimov has a tough draw. It'll be incredible if he could win the whole thing.

I'll give you three names to follow: Ilya Popov, Nikita Piskunov and Artem Oganesyan.
Popov and Piskunov will most likely end up fighting between 56-64 kg, while Oganesyan will most likely be a 75 or 81 kg fighter.
All three of them are Russian, it's crazy how much young talent Russia has right now.
The only thing is that they are still at Junior level, Piskunov and Oganesyan will be moving up to Youth level later this year though. The bad thing is that we still don't know if they will be allowed to develop properly. It's still a long way (time) before they reach Senior level.
Those three could be the real deal though. I especially liked what I saw from Ilya Popov.

[////]

All the good American boxers are in the NFL and NBA because as we all know 5'9" middleweights are in high demand in the NFL and NBA

That excuse worked when we were trying to explain why drunken '70s style heavyweights went extinct and got replaced with European robots but now that the US has weak representation across the board it's time to just admit we never had superior boxers, just superior TV coverage propelling average (and sometimes mediocre) boxers to superstardom.

[Build That Wall]

How is Erislandy Savon doing.

[Build That Wall]

Won yesterday by some really wide scores. Tomorrow he fights an Uzbeki fighter, Tulaganov.

He got robbed against Joshua in the Olympics.

[Fetta]

All the good American boxers are in the NFL and NBA because as we all know 5'9" middleweights are in high demand in the NFL and NBA

That excuse worked when we were trying to explain why drunken '70s style heavyweights went extinct and got replaced with European robots but now that the US has weak representation across the board it's time to just admit we never had superior boxers, just superior TV coverage propelling average (and sometimes mediocre) boxers to superstardom.

I take it youve never played sports before. Cause if you did then you would know that you arent born at 6' 2" or whatever, you grow and while you are growing you play football/basketball/baseball from pop warner through high school. And yes these 5' 9" middleweights wanna play football then too and they do. and all this takes place around the time that boxers would be working on their craft.

Football rules America