On October 23rd, 1968 in Mexico City, George Foreman, a 19-year-old heavyweight boxer and by his own admission a troubled youth, scored a second-round TKO victory in the gold medal match against the Soviet Union’s Ionas Chepulis.
During the same Olympics in which track stars Tommy Smith and John Carlos held up their black-gloved fists on the medal stand to signify the black power salute, Foreman, after his final bout, waved a small American flag and bowed to the cheering audience.
The victory made Foreman famous, and he went on to become a great professional heavyweight champion, who later came out of years of retirement to win the heavyweight title at the age of 45. He was selected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame and the World Boxing Hall of Fame. Today he is an ordained minister and, thanks in large part to his George Foreman grill, incredibly wealthy.
Forty eight years after Foreman’s triumph in Mexico City, the Rio Olympics for the first time is allowing professional boxers to compete in the Games, provided they go through an APB (AIBA Pro Boxing) qualifying process. They will be using a pro scoring system as well and have scrapped the headgear.
As the money in the professional ranks has increased exponentially, the U.S. amateur program has suffered. In London, for the first time, the U.S., which dominated the Olympics from the ’60s through the ’80s and into the ’90s, where Oscar De La Hoya won gold in Barcelona in 1992, did not win a medal among its male boxers. Youngsters are going for the money at an earlier age.
Still, the general consensus among today’s professional fighters, outside of Manny Pacquiao, who has expressed an interest in getting the one honor — a gold medal — that has eluded him and his country, the Philippines, is that this is unfair, and possibly dangerous. Putting a seasoned fighter up against an 18-year-old amateur cannot be a good idea.
Roy Jones Jr., whose loss in the gold medal bout of the 1988 Seoul Games was one of the greatest travesties in Olympic history, told Boxingscene.com that the Olympics is for the young. “Imagine your 19-year-old son gets sent to the Olympics and now he has to fight Wladimir Klitschko,” Jones said.
The World Boxing Council, goes further, recently vowing to ban for two years any of the organization’s ranked fighters who decide to fight in Rio.
Foreman agrees that Olympic boxing should remain in the hands of amateurs.
“Having been a past member of the USA Team, I dislike the idea and see nothing good coming of it,” Foreman said. “It will only put the dream of the `ordinary boy and girl,` farther out of reach. As we can see with pro basketball there is no rags to riches anymore, just the pick of the litter.
“The amateur boxer is the lifeline of the Olympics.”
Article courtesy of USA Today
During the same Olympics in which track stars Tommy Smith and John Carlos held up their black-gloved fists on the medal stand to signify the black power salute, Foreman, after his final bout, waved a small American flag and bowed to the cheering audience.
The victory made Foreman famous, and he went on to become a great professional heavyweight champion, who later came out of years of retirement to win the heavyweight title at the age of 45. He was selected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame and the World Boxing Hall of Fame. Today he is an ordained minister and, thanks in large part to his George Foreman grill, incredibly wealthy.
Forty eight years after Foreman’s triumph in Mexico City, the Rio Olympics for the first time is allowing professional boxers to compete in the Games, provided they go through an APB (AIBA Pro Boxing) qualifying process. They will be using a pro scoring system as well and have scrapped the headgear.
As the money in the professional ranks has increased exponentially, the U.S. amateur program has suffered. In London, for the first time, the U.S., which dominated the Olympics from the ’60s through the ’80s and into the ’90s, where Oscar De La Hoya won gold in Barcelona in 1992, did not win a medal among its male boxers. Youngsters are going for the money at an earlier age.
Still, the general consensus among today’s professional fighters, outside of Manny Pacquiao, who has expressed an interest in getting the one honor — a gold medal — that has eluded him and his country, the Philippines, is that this is unfair, and possibly dangerous. Putting a seasoned fighter up against an 18-year-old amateur cannot be a good idea.
Roy Jones Jr., whose loss in the gold medal bout of the 1988 Seoul Games was one of the greatest travesties in Olympic history, told Boxingscene.com that the Olympics is for the young. “Imagine your 19-year-old son gets sent to the Olympics and now he has to fight Wladimir Klitschko,” Jones said.
The World Boxing Council, goes further, recently vowing to ban for two years any of the organization’s ranked fighters who decide to fight in Rio.
Foreman agrees that Olympic boxing should remain in the hands of amateurs.
“Having been a past member of the USA Team, I dislike the idea and see nothing good coming of it,” Foreman said. “It will only put the dream of the `ordinary boy and girl,` farther out of reach. As we can see with pro basketball there is no rags to riches anymore, just the pick of the litter.
“The amateur boxer is the lifeline of the Olympics.”
Article courtesy of USA Today
