Eastern block 70/80s

[tonyjones]

Just wanna ask some of the history buffs their opinion on what impact would eastern block fighters being allowed fight pro in these decades?like is it coincidence the American dominance in these periods is because of this??

[Canelo and GGG]

Just wanna ask some of the history buffs their opinion on what impact would eastern block fighters being allowed fight pro in these decades?like is it coincidence the American dominance in these periods is because of this??

Ofc it is not a coincidence,they would probably have some belts like know,American fighters still holds more championship but eastern block have theyr share too.

We allways had good CWs and HWs just like Japan and Mexico have good flyweights.

So IMO they would have huge impact in LHW(no CW back then) and HW,Maybe some individuals in lighter devisions,most Olympic medalists from that time were in Higher devs doe.

This was times when Amateur boxing wasnt so diffrent then pro too.

Dark times in our history and it had impact on every aspect of life,unfortunately sport was no exception.

[ShoulderRoll]

Just wanna ask some of the history buffs their opinion on what impact would eastern block fighters being allowed fight pro in these decades?like is it coincidence the American dominance in these periods is because of this??

America turned out a lot of gold medalists in the '70s and '80s against fighters from the Eastern Bloc, Cuba, etc. Look at the 1976 squad for example. Or even the 1988 team with golds for Ray Mercer, Anthony Hembrick, and Kennedy McKinney...and silvers for Roy Jones, Riddick Bowe, and Michael Carbajal.

We still would have been dominant.

The big drop off started in the 1990s along with the explosion in popularity of the NFL and NBA.

[Weltschmerz]

The Soviet system was unique in different ways. They much sustained a belief of athlete first, boxer second, i.e. focusing on developing the overall athlete, before completing the fighter as such. This philosophy permeated their system overall. Eastern bloc fighters were always great athletes, something American boxers not necessarily were. The Soviet system focused on dietary and psychology programs too, for instance. A very professional approach throughout, it was very advanced, even compared to today's standards.

To answer the OP question shortly, Eastern European boxers would have been at least as competitive professionally as we see them today.

[Anthony342]

Poland huh? Wasn't Andrew Golota popular there for a while, since he was from there? and is it true their hockey team drowned in spring training?

Dominant or not, there are some real tough dudes from those countries. We've been getting to see more of them in recent years, like Klitschko Bros. and Kovalev, plus sambo practitioners like Oleg Taktarov, Fedor and Khabib Nurmagomedov.

[Canelo and GGG]

Well, you might think - why is this dude brining Poland up - because you didn't see great amateurs from us in decades, but in the 60 we had similar golden era as Ukraine had recently with generation of Usyk, Lomachenko...
In the medal table in 60, 64, 68 Poland was 3-rd, 2-nd and 4-th respectively. PRetty much on par with Soviet Union and United States in that period.
Golota was widely popular as a professional - fact of him competing with legendary figures like Tyson was working on imagination, but in amateurs it's not really that much following of individual athlethes, but about following of sports in general, national team and city teams.
In the 60 there was a league of amateur boxing in Poland with fighters competing in full arenas everywhere in the country, also any international matches of National teams - with Soviet Union, Germany(Those two in particular, for obvious reasons), United States, Hungary - were getting big attention. Boxing was pretty much national sport at the time. Still popular in early 80s, but not to that extent.
PS: No, that's not true about Hockey team .

Pietrzykowski hero of 50s and 60s

[Keleneki]

Thanks. I really enjoy reading and learning from you folks a lot.

[Humean]

America turned out a lot of gold medalists in the '70s and '80s against fighters from the Eastern Bloc, Cuba, etc. Look at the 1976 squad for example. Or even the 1988 team with golds for Ray Mercer, Anthony Hembrick, and Kennedy McKinney...and silvers for Roy Jones, Riddick Bowe, and Michael Carbajal.

We still would have been dominant.

The big drop off started in the 1990s along with the explosion in popularity of the NFL and NBA.

US fighters didn't exactly dominate pro-boxing in the 1970s.

As for the amateurs between the Olympics of 1960 through to 1984 the US won 37 medals for boxing, 21 Gold, 3 Silver and 13 Bronze. The Eastern Bloc won 108 medals, 25 Gold, 31 Silver and 52 Bronze.

Out of the 21 US boxers that won Olympic Gold all but one turned pro but out of the 23 Eastern Bloc Gold medalists none of them turned pro. It is certainly likely that if the Eastern Bloc fighters had been able to turn pro in the 1970s and 1980s then the history would be quite different. It is worth pointing out however that because they never turned pro the typical Eastern Bloc medalist tended to be older than the typical US medalist during the 60s, 70s, and 80s. So most of the best Eastern Bloc medalists from the 1960 and 1964 and even 1968 Olympics wouldn't have had much impact on the 1970s because of that.

I agree with Mastrangelo that Vyacheslav Lemeshev is probably the best of the Eastern Bloc fighters that could have made an impact on the 1970s but from what I've read he was an alcoholic so he might not have amounted to much as a pro. It is hard to say who would have amounted to much and who wouldn't, anyone who saw Korobov as an amateur would have thought he was guaranteed to be a world champion if he turned pro as he was a superior boxer to Golovkin and Kovalev but look how things turned out. The only thing that is clear is that there were a lot of good amateur boxers from the Eastern Bloc and at least some of them could have competed at the highest levels in the pro game.

[ShoulderRoll]

US fighters didn't exactly dominate pro-boxing in the 1970s.

As for the amateurs between the Olympics of 1960 through to 1984 the US won 37 medals for boxing, 21 Gold, 3 Silver and 13 Bronze. The Eastern Bloc won 108 medals, 25 Gold, 31 Silver and 52 Bronze.

At heavyweight US fighters certainly dominated pro boxing in the 1970s.

As far as the amateurs...keep in mind that we are comparing one country to an entire region made up of several different countries.

The fact that the U.S. by itself almost matches their gold medal output says a lot.

[Humean]

At heavyweight US fighters certainly dominated pro boxing in the 1970s.

As far as the amateurs...keep in mind that we are comparing one country to an entire region made up of several different countries.

The fact that the U.S. by itself almost matches their gold medal output says a lot.

I don't think the Eastern Bloc heavyweights of the 70s and 80s would have competed on an equal footing with the US ones, that was a vintage lot of US heavyweights.

Yes of course the Eastern Bloc were bound to pick up more medals than the US as I was comparing one country (USA) with seven. However the issue is what the impact of having Eastern Bloc fighters turning pro would be so the comparison is fair as it indicates that there would have been a hell of a lot of good Eastern Bloc fighters in the pro ranks in this hypothetical situation.

The USA Gold medal count is exaggerated by the 1984 Olympics though. The USA (and others) non-participation in 1980 had less of an impact on boxing than the Eastern Bloc (6 of the 7) and Cuban non-participation did on the 1984 games.