Olympians Turning Pro

Demetrius Andrade will bust, and earlier than expected I might add,..

 

dsimon writes:

BNb nit the nail on the head. Ammy's have changed so much, hard to follow as a means to guage pro ability. The kids also don't really get the seasoning and.... I would nevr want to be accused of advocating a kid look to get seasoned at a y9ung age. One of the reasons I am a fan of junior Chavez is because like Juan Diaz he seems to be not compromising his life entirely while having a decent career. But how many of these guys can do that?

Of one thing I am certain: we are in a recession and this hardscrabble environment might well produce the crime and violence necessary to make a few great fighters..... Yay.:notallthere: In the meantime I will be rooting equally hard for the next Neil Bohr or stephen hawkins, as the next more stable analog of iron MIke..

 

disagREED...

REED thinks Andrade will B BETTER than "The Andre's", Ward & Dirrell...Do U Consider Them "Busts"???...


REED:dunno:

 

Four years later...who knows?

 

It's Unknown if they're TRUE Title Contenders or Not, but REED wouldn't Call Either Andre a "Bust"...

Michael Bennett was a "Bust"...Ricardo Williams was a "Bust"...Amir Khan MIGHT is Probably a "Bust"...



REED:hammert:

 

I'm not sure either has even fought someone on par with Juan Valenzuela, yet.

 

REED Didn't Rate Valenzuela All that Highly...He was Entertaining but Not Exactly a THREAT on the ELITE Level...& When's the Last Time he Fought???...

Rubin Williams & Jerson Ravelo were Decent Wins for Ward...& Hanshaw was a Decent Win for Dirrell...If Valenzuela was Better than those Guys, it was SLIGHTLY...



REED:mj:

 

He's not great, but he's durable and he's test, he'll ask some questions of a fighter and Williams fought him relatively early on.

I wouldn't rate Williams or Ravelo that highly. Hanshaw was a decent win for Dirrell.

It doesn't look like they'll be busts at this point, but if they lose their next fight or so, they'd be called that.

 

Can someone be considered a bust if there were little to no expectations to begin with? I'm not sure anyone predicted much of anything for either Andre.

As far as I'm concerned, both have managed to live up (or down) to expectations so far. For the sake of a barometer, I really wouldn't rate, or possibly even pick, either fighter over Allan Green at the moment.

 

agREED...

& As Such, They've Both SLIGHTLY Surpassed REED's Expectations to this Point...

REED Thought Ward Would B Genuinely TESTED by Ravelo AND Williams...& REED Saw Dirrell-Hanshaw as a "Pick-Em" Fight...

Like U, REED Would Favor Allan Green Over Both...



REED:hammert:

 

I have to admit, Dirrell's doing better than I expected - though of course I always manage to confuse him with his brother. I know that Andre knocked out Hanshaw and outlapped Curtis Stevens - is he also the one that's a blatant Roy wannabe, or is that Anthony?

Whichever one that is, is the one I expected to have been knocked out by now.

Ward's pretty much where I figured he'd be by this point. As far as gold medalists go, his lack of progress is a considerable letdown to this point... but again, he went in rated as the weakest of previous US Gold medalists, so he's pretty much met the bar.

It's way too soon to determine how far Andrade goes. I guess I'd be disappointed if by 2012 he wasn't further along when where the Andre's are today. But not really sure of the general expectations, aside from most regarding him as the best of the '08 squad, which these days is similar to being named the tallest midget in the circus.

 

Andre's the "Rent-a-Roy"...Anthony's the 1 w/the Medical Condition that's Kept him On the Shelf...

REED's a Believer N Andrade Because of his SIZE (6'2), SKILL Level, YOUTH & TOUGHNESS (1 Thing Charles Hatley CAN Do is PUNCH, yet he NEVER Fazed Andrade from what REED Saw)...& he's a SOUTHPAW....

REED Would Expect Andrade to B Moved More AMBITIOUSLY than Ward or Dirrell & HAVE a World Title by 2012...



REED:hammert:

 

I guess Andrade has higher expectations than they did starting out, at least from some people, though honestly it's had to tell.

 

You have it right. Andre appears to be the better athlete, and actually quite gifted, but he's not as fundamentally sound as Anthony.

Anthony just resumed his career on the Dawson-Tarver card.

 

I put a lot of weight on amateur success and I have been very big on both Andre's from the beginning.

No way is Andrade noticeably more athletic than Andre Dirrell. Dirrell has freak reflexes. And no way has Andrade been more successful as an am than Andre Ward was.

I like all 3 of these guys a lot. Rau'shee Warren is the only other guy that is a similar prospect, although there are some other olympians who might be close, i.e. Luis Yanez.

As far as Ward...it was a huge mistake for him to get down to 160...he looked like shit. He has looked far better back up at 168--back to normal--than he did at 160. He may even fare better at 175.

As far as Anthony Dirrell...had to like Andre better at first because he had better results as an am. As a pro, however, when Andre had a couple of miscues, Anthony was blowing out everyone looking like a more powerful Andre. Now, post-cancer, who knows how he'll turn out.

 

I agree about Ward at 160. He looked very weak at the weight. He's looked better at 168, and seems to have gained a little bit of power from it.

He's an intelligent fighter, that might be the most under-rated part of his game.

 

Nope they haven't busted yet,.. Andrade is worse than them, expect it to be all over after his 4th pro fight, an awful pro prospect, simply awful.. :nono:

 

Fightnews:

 

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That's an interesting one, how old is shiming anyway?

Funny that the most charmless man in Britain, James DeGale, has been signed by Allegedly. He's going to be crap to watch as a pro, and he comes across as a knob, he will make audley look like a crowd pleaser.

 

Shiming is 27.

 

I want the light-heavyweight gold medalist from China to turn pro. That clown couldn´t fight at all and robbed every other boxer in the tournament. Luckily the heavyweight clown was bashed by Cammarelle in the final. That was awesome.

 

Agreed entirely, though I'd just add that I'm a bit disappointed (though not surprised in the slightest) that the three of them are signed to Werren.

Expect more hideous ITV build up geared towards an expensive and wholly disinteresting PPV career after building a reasonable collection of mooks for a resume.

Also, not one of these three will do shit worth anything, imho. DeGale especially is one of the worst gold-medalists I can recall; like a 160lb sloppy, slappy version of Junior Witter...:doh:

MTF

 

De Gale isn't that bad, he beat some good boxers on way to gold yet i am not convinced that he'll amount to much as a pro.......i hope he does, cos contrary to others, i think he is a decent bloke.....not the most articulate, but not arrogant and has struck me as being very honest to date


Gavin is the big talent here.....his failure to even make it into the ring in Beijing will have taken off an 0 or two off his promotional fee but i think the lack of subsequent hype will help him in the long run

 

I think Saunders will turn out best

 

Didn't one of the Brits get into trouble with drugs?

 

yeah, Bradley Saunders (don't confuse with Billy Joe, who is one of the 3 who have just signed with Warren)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...held-over-16312000-cocaine-stash-1035164.html


Salaco....to be honest, i don't know a lot about Billy Joe, other than he comes with a very good reputation and a lot of people, like yourself rate his professional prospects higher than De Gale's

.....Warren's approach will be interesting....in Audley and Khan we have two examples of how not to do it.......each of the boxers will need to be brought through differently

 

Audley was handeled brilliantly. He got a million bucks from TV before his first pro fight, and that doesn't even include other bonuses. Then, there's the fact that he just flat out sucks. Sure, he didn't get HUGE paydays, but that's because he couldn't get past softies.

In the end, Warren made decent money off of him, and he made some decent money of his own.

Now with Khan, considering his troubles despite winning, should have been brought along better.

 

yeah, but the lesson with Audley is that he was getting much too much much too soon......a large part of the incentive had already gone.....he was calling his own shots before too long....he didn't knuckle down and his ego was allowed to inflate out of control

 

Boxingscene:

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