Olympians Turning Pro

You're right. He won the world ams in 2005 and 2007. I'm not sure if he won best boxer at either of those or if they even award a best boxer at that world ams? Anyway, he doesn't fit because he did have something to gain by fighting in the olys.

I defended the am scoring system for 15 years and then the 2008 olympics hit and the scoring was so bad it was painful. I don't remember thinking that too many guys got screwed (I don't remember thinking Korobov got screwed, for example), but there were just so few points being scored that it was easy to run with a lead and I think that happened a lot.

If you wiki on recent am fighters and look at their scoring performances pre 2008 and 2008 on, you will see the points just drop off the map. I never have heard why this happened, but it was like they changed the time to score from 1 full second to 1/3 second.

 

I agree, the scoring definitely led to some running late fights and generally favored the run-and-hit styles...there were some fights I remember watching where fighter's weren't getting the points they should have, and that body punches weren't earning many points.

This is part of the reason why I do like the World Series of Boxing...I don't really like the long term commitment of it, but I do like the idea of getting some of these amateurs into the ring under under a more professional setting before they turn pro, because there's a real disconnect between the professional and amateur styles.