tyson-savon 1993: your pick

[man]

i favor savon. he and stevenson are my all time favourites.
strong, fast, smart and all in quiet fashion.

[Robinson]

Is this meant for the amateur boxing forum?

[man]

are you implying savon was not competitive against the pros?
not seriously, right?

[Robinson]

I was saying that he was a tremendous amateur but we just
do not know how well he would do as a pro. Beating top
pro's in the amateur's when they are young and green while
you are a veteran amateur is not really an indication as to how
well he would do against say a Tyson..even a 1992 one.

[Goodnight, Irene]

Savon wouldn't have a prayer. Not a prayer.

[hhaehre]

are you implying savon was not competitive against the pros?
not seriously, right?

Are you seriously implying that Savon, without a single pro fight to his name, would have had any kind of chance against 93 Tyson ? Surely you must be joking.
It's hard to say what Savon could have been had he turned pro but it is very easy to predict what would have happend if he had made his professional debut against Tyson in 93, Tyson by 1st round ko. There is a reason why even the best amateurs have 20-25 professional fights before contending for a title.

[man]

I was saying that he was a tremendous amateur but we just
do not know how well he would do as a pro. Beating top
pro's in the amateur's when they are young and green while
you are a veteran amateur is not really an indication as to how
well he would do against say a Tyson..even a 1992 one.

well, the only indication of how he would have done as a pro
are his fights against guys who (admittedly) later on became
top ten pros.

[man]

are you implying savon was not competitive against the pros?
not seriously, right?

Are you seriously implying that Savon, without a single pro fight to his name, would have had any kind of chance against 93 Tyson ? Surely you must be joking.
It's hard to say what Savon could have been had he turned pro but it is very easy to predict what would have happend if he had made his professional debut against Tyson in 93, Tyson by 1st round ko. There is a reason why even the best amateurs have 20-25 professional fights before contending for a title.

i took 93 to have tyson in prime and not after prison.
you are probably right on the remark that a pro-debut
against tyson wouldn't have been the best of ideas. as
far as i know stevenson was offered a fight against ali
in the seventies ... so at least some people thought
there were exemptions to the typical career ...

to me both stevenson and savon are difficult to judge,
because, yes, they just fought amateurs but on the other
hand their sheer dominance indicated something ... special.

[wouter]

Are you seriously implying that Savon, without a single pro fight to his name, would have had any kind of chance against 93 Tyson ? Surely you must be joking.
It's hard to say what Savon could have been had he turned pro but it is very easy to predict what would have happend if he had made his professional debut against Tyson in 93, Tyson by 1st round ko. There is a reason why even the best amateurs have 20-25 professional fights before contending for a title.

Most fighters coming out of the amateurs are inexperienced youngsters - hence the 20-25 fights - but that ofcourse wouldn't be the case with Savon. I'd think that Savon would be able to handle himself over the first couple rounds. As he isn't used to fighting over the longer distance, it's in the later rounds that he may run into trouble. Then again, the later rounds are not Tyson's best either.
My pick: Tyson somewhere in the middle rounds, since Savon was a bit chinny. Were it an amateur fight: Savon by comfortable decision.

[man]

i guess he would have easily beaten wlad (and i am a fan),
had they met '96 in the ring. but sure wlad then was not
the (manny)wlad he is now ...

[man]

just to mention how i came up with this question: i saw
a series of savon fights against briggs, tua, krasniqi,
ibgragimov and he was very dominant. to an extent
that i believe he would have beaten each of them easily
in their pro-prime. so the question came up where his
limit would have been ...

btw i do not think a fight against tyson would have been
necessarily a "good" fight in terms of boxing. vitali and
lennox would have been more interesting matchups in
this respect.

[overhand_right]

Jorge Luis Gonzalez, a Savon-type monster, beat Riddick Bowe and Lennox Lewis in the amateurs.

You should look into what unfolded when Bowe fought Gonzalez for real in the pros. . .

[Jaywheel]

Tyson via brutal Ko, Savon keeps on wearing a head gear for life afterwards

[hhaehre]

Are you seriously implying that Savon, without a single pro fight to his name, would have had any kind of chance against 93 Tyson ? Surely you must be joking.
It's hard to say what Savon could have been had he turned pro but it is very easy to predict what would have happend if he had made his professional debut against Tyson in 93, Tyson by 1st round ko. There is a reason why even the best amateurs have 20-25 professional fights before contending for a title.

Most fighters coming out of the amateurs are inexperienced youngsters - hence the 20-25 fights - but that ofcourse wouldn't be the case with Savon. I'd think that Savon would be able to handle himself over the first couple rounds. As he isn't used to fighting over the longer distance, it's in the later rounds that he may run into trouble. Then again, the later rounds are not Tyson's best either.
My pick: Tyson somewhere in the middle rounds, since Savon was a bit chinny. Were it an amateur fight: Savon by comfortable decision.

I have to disagree, there are many examples of dominant amateur fighters turning pro late with 100+ amateur fights under their belts and they still needed several years in the pro game before they were ready for serious business. To me amateur boxing and professional boxing are very different and turning pro late is seldom a good idea. A prime Tyson would have destroyed Savon with or without head gear imo.

[enrique]

Savon was KNOCKED OUT 17 Times in his career as an amateur.

Based on that fact, I would not bet on him beating Tyson.

[buster007]

if it was 1993 i think tyson would ko king kong if he were in the ring.

but yes it is very difficult to know who savon would beat in the pros.

it is one of the most unnanswered questions in the last 20 years i think.

i don't know how accurate the 17ko defeat record is for savon because i believe he only lost 21 times with 362 wins so it does seem odd.

[Grimm]

Amateur boxing is almost a different sport than pro boxing from the scoring to the headgear to the weight of the gloves and even the amount of rounds.

Tyson vs. Savon in a professional boxing match would end sort of like Tyson vs. Spinks.

You know who else was a great amateur?

Someone who beat Stevenson in the amateurs as well as Tyson?

Craig Payne.

As a pro he accomplished nothing, being a good amateur does not translate in to being a good professional.

[man]

Savon was KNOCKED OUT 17 Times in his career as an amateur.

Based on that fact, I would not bet on him beating Tyson.

i have no idea about details of his amateur career. could well be
that he fought much older people while being a teenager. i do
not think it is fair to state that "fact" and at the same ignore that
in his prime he beat guys who a few years later became significant
contenders in the pro-arena.

[man]

Amateur boxing is almost a different sport than pro boxing from the scoring to the headgear to the weight of the gloves and even the amount of rounds.

Tyson vs. Savon in a professional boxing match would end sort of like Tyson vs. Spinks.

You know who else was a great amateur?

Someone who beat Stevenson in the amateurs as well as Tyson?

Craig Payne.

As a pro he accomplished nothing, being a good amateur does not translate in to being a good professional.

well, yes. but then we have foreman, ali, wlad, just to name a few
olympic champions who did well at the pros ... and they did not
need too much time to adjust for the pro-world.

while i basically agree with the huge difference of amateur versus
pros, i think there is once in a while extraordinary talent that can
quickly adjust for it. and my guess is that savon fell in that category.

and if you will, let savon turn pro in 1993 and let him meet tyson
in 1995 behind bars. this is just hypothetical anyways, i do not know
why some guys here insist on weird detail ...

final thing: we are talking cuba here. i guess their amateur scene
is somewhat different from other parts of the world, simply because
there is no pro-world. thus the huge talents remain ... amateurs.

[man]

... being a good amateur does not translate in to being a good professional.

final note. you make some logic mistake here IMHO. while "being a good
amateur does not translate in to being a good professional" necessarily,
it does not do the opposite either: prevent from being a good professional.
as many examples show ...

[Grimm]

... being a good amateur does not translate in to being a good professional.

final note. you make some logic mistake here IMHO. while "being a good
amateur does not translate in to being a good professional" necessarily,
it does not do the opposite either: prevent from being a good professional.
as many examples show ...

You are correct about this, it doesn't mean the opposite it just means you cannot judge how someone would do as a pro based off of how they did as an amateur.

[man]

You are correct about this, it doesn't mean the opposite it just means you cannot judge how someone would do as a pro based off of how they did as an amateur.

oh i don't do that. i was less impressed by him being 3times
olympic champion, but by the way he humiliated a couple of guys
who later on became reasonable contenders in the pro arena.
watch the youtube clips against tua, briggs and ibragimov. i
doubt he would not have again defeated them later on in their
(pro)-careers ... so that seemed to be indication of someone
special even by pro-standards.

[buster007]

bought this back. interesting one thats all.

[SamWise72]

Are you seriously implying that Savon, without a single pro fight to his name, would have had any kind of chance against 93 Tyson ? Surely you must be joking.
It's hard to say what Savon could have been had he turned pro but it is very easy to predict what would have happend if he had made his professional debut against Tyson in 93, Tyson by 1st round ko. There is a reason why even the best amateurs have 20-25 professional fights before contending for a title.

Most fighters coming out of the amateurs are inexperienced youngsters - hence the 20-25 fights - but that ofcourse wouldn't be the case with Savon. I'd think that Savon would be able to handle himself over the first couple rounds. As he isn't used to fighting over the longer distance, it's in the later rounds that he may run into trouble. Then again, the later rounds are not Tyson's best either.
My pick: Tyson somewhere in the middle rounds, since Savon was a bit chinny. Were it an amateur fight: Savon by comfortable decision.

Pete Rademacher was 29, an Olympic champ and a very experienced amateur when he made his debut for the heavyweight title against Floyd Patterson. It didn't got that well.

[Rover]

Jorge Luis Gonzalez, a Savon-type monster, beat Riddick Bowe and Lennox Lewis in the amateurs.

You should look into what unfolded when Bowe fought Gonzalez for real in the pros. . .

I saw one of the Lewis/Gonzales fights from the World Championships in Indianapolis; was televised on CBS, and it's on Youtube. Thought Lennox won.
Heck, just look at Tyson and Tillman when comparing amateur and pro results.
Or Lewis/Biggs.