Does the Olympic Gold medal predict success at heavyweight?

[pound per pound]

Does the Olympic Gold medal predict success at heavyweight?

• 1984 – Tyrell Biggs (USA)
• 1988 – Lennox Lewis (CAN)
• 1992 – Roberto Balado (CUB)
• 1996 – Wladimir Klitschko (UKR)
• 2000 – Audley Harrison (GBR)
• 2004 – Alexander Povetkin (RUS)
• 2008 – Roberto Cammarelle (ITA)
• 2012 – Anthony Joshua (GBR)


1984 Biggs, won fair in square but the Cuban’s and Russia federation boycotted the games. As such there is an asterisk.

1988. Lewis was the real deal

1992. Blando did not go pro. He died young. We shall never know.

1996. Klitschko is the real deal.

2000. Harrison was a fraud, and the field in 2000 was a weak one.

2004 Povetkin is the best behind Wlad this decade. He has had a solid career, and would be viewed as the #1 man if Wlad retired tomorrow.

2008. Cammarelle did not go pro. He was a big man with skills and power. I think he would be a top ten type of talent if he went pro.

2012. Joshua. So far so good. Too early to tell.

Summary. Of the winners who went pro in non-boycotted games, two were hall of fame talents, one was a top contender for years, one was a bust, and one is too new to draw any definitive conclusion.

I would say if you win the super heavyweight gold medal, odds are you are for real as a professional. The good news for boxing fans? I think the projected 2016 super heavyweight field is rather deep and loaded with talent.

[Butterbean]

why are you dizzing harrison ? maybe not a hall of famer, but hey dude was extreme top athlete, that won an olympic gold medal. what have you achieved in your lives ?
and why mock him, why call him fraud ?

[pound per pound]

Audley Harrison.

End of thread!

Gonzalez won the super heavyweight gold medal?

I think the answer in modern times is likely yes, especially is the field is good.

[pound per pound]

why are you dizzing harrison ? maybe not a hall of famer, but hey dude was extreme top athlete, that won an olympic gold medal. what have you achieved in your lives ?
and why mock him, why call him fraud ?

Because I felt he dogged it in some fights. That is different than not living up to the hype.

[pound per pound]

Peter Rademacher, Tyrell Biggs, Audley Harrison & Henry Tillman.

End of thread!

Or Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Lewis, and Klitschko Yes there is a correlation between success. The hall of fame people outnumber the busts, at least in modern times.

[Dennis]

Add Floyd Patterson to the list of successful gold medalists in the pro ranks.

[T.M.K]

1956 Peter Rademacher, USA
1960 Franco De Piccolo, Italy
1964 Joe Frazier, USA
1968 George Foreman, USA
1972 Teofilo Stevenson, Cuba
1976 Teofilo Stevenson, Cuba
1980 Teofilo Stevenson, Cuba
1984 Henry Tillman, USA
1988 Ray Mercer, USA
1992 Felix Savon, Cuba
1996 Felix Savon, Cuba
2000 Felix Savon, Cuba
2004 Odlanier Solis Fonte, Cuba
2008 Rakhim Chakhkiev, Russia
2012 Oleksandr Usyk, Ukr

Now if you add-in the list of Heavyweight Gold Medalists in the last 40-odd years, you can make a point that most of them will fight for world honours IF they turn pro. The last 2 champions are closing-in on title shots.

Cheers

"T.M.K"

[Badhusker]

Of course it gives an indication. Getting a gold medal is no easy task.

If you are just looking at heavyweights, Ali was Light Heavy and Patterson was Middle, if I remember right. I know for sure Ali (Cassius Clay) was light heavy.

[jujigatame]

Audley was a flop but to be fair he was already 30 when he turned pro. What was weird about his career was how inconsistent he was. He had a few good wins but also several awful losses. He just had no durability at all.

[Bobbyptsd]

Peter Rademacher, Tyrell Biggs, Audley Harrison & Henry Tillman.

End of thread!

Or Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Lewis, and Klitschko Yes there is a correlation between success. The hall of fame people outnumber the busts, at least in modern times.

What's the title of the thread again?

What's the actual percentages to justify the correlation?

Exactly, it either predicts it or it doesn't. When people can cite half (or more) who don't have that level of pro success, I think the question is answered.

But I guess we can always argue forever about Cammarelle, Stevenson and Savon's imaginary pro careers, this is Boxrec after all.

[crusader]

Obviously it doesn't give a perfect indication of how the person will fare professionally, but generally the gold medalists who have turned pro have done well and I think it's worth considering how someone did as an amateur when predicting how well they'll do professionally.

[crusader]

Starting decades ago with Frazier a good majority of those you list who turned pro were at least contenders or are currently unbeaten prospects. There are also several world champions and all-time greats in that mix, and generally the quality of those fighters is quite high in my view. Whether such fighters generally meet someone's standard of success will vary, but I'd say that in today's era winning a gold medal, while not a perfect indicator of how one will fare professionally, is evidence that the person will be a fairly high-level pro (i.e. roughly within the top 15).

[Bobbyptsd]

Yeah, I mean if the question is "Does an Olympic gold medalist have potential", well of course the answer is yes.

But that wasn't the question.

[crusader]

The list you offered clearly shows outcomes for the gold medalists improving with time, so I think some the earliest cases are unrepresentative of the gold medal's current predictive powers; starting from Frazier I think the professional outcomes of the Olympic champions generally indicate that winning a gold medal is solid evidence that someone will be a fairly high-level pro if they chose to box professionally. Now if success is taken to mean only that someone becomes the top pro in the world than the outcomes haven't been nearly as good, but we can still see that several Olympic champions have reached that standard of success.

[crusader]

Yeah, I mean if the question is "Does an Olympic gold medalist have potential", well of course the answer is yes.

But that wasn't the question.

The question simply asked if the gold predicts professional success, with the latter word left undefined. I think the outcomes over the past few decades provide good evidence that being Olympic champions generally predicts a fairly high-level of professional success, but like most things it's not a perfect predictor and cases vary.

[crusader]

The OP is clearly concerned with the success of people who turned professional, so cases in which gold medalists didn't turn pro aren't applicable in my opinion and I don't see reasons to think that these fighters would have been relatively unsuccessful pros. Moreover, and as I've noted multiple times, the least successful cases you've given occurred fairly long ago, with the more recent cases (from around the 1960s) being far more favorable. The OP's list extends only 31 years back and closes with reference to the 2016 Olympics, so he seems focused on what gold predicts now and in relatively recent years rather than its predictive powers in the early 1900s when people on your list such as Albert Oldman were fighting.

Based on the available evidence, I think it's clear that going back to the 1960s Olympic champions who campaign at HW will generally experience a fairly high-level of success in the sense of at least being within the top 15 or so, with several examples of gold medalists being higher ranked, winning titles, and even becoming all-time greats.

[Badhusker]

Some people over-analyze relatively simple questions.

[crusader]

Nothing the OP has written is incompatible with focusing on whether being Olympic champion is currently predictive of success at HW, and the OP never defined what they mean by success so there aren't any clear goalposts to be moved. It comes down to individual conceptions of what that term means as I've noted, and I don't take a definition of success as being the top pro fighter in the world to be the only viable one.

Related to the issues of amateurs who never turned pro and those who boxed long ago, one of the most important intellectual abilities is being able to use context to discern what someone means. In the OP's list only Olympic champions going back roughly 30 years are mentioned, the upcoming 2016 Olympics are noted, and later the OP responds to one of your posts by specifically narrowing the conversation to 'modern' fighters, all of which show a clear focus on recent examples and not ones from nearly a century ago or more, which constitute many of you the cases you list in which the Olympic champion didn't achieve much professionally. The nature of the OP's inquiry is also focused on what winning gold suggests about someone's likely pro success, which can't be discerned from evaluating fighters who never turned pro.

So, given the context around the question, the evidence available, and what I think is one reasonable standard of success, I'd say that there is a clear and positive relationship between winning an Olympic gold medal and having success professionally at the weight, even though some clearly have reached the levels that others did.

[Freedom2013]

People always bring up Audrey Harrison, but keep in mind in 2000 she was in her late 20s competing with young boxers age 19-21.

[ikorolev]

At HW or any weight, amateur olympic or world champs will likely succeed in professional boxing if they have all of the following:
- good chin
- good heart
- good stamina

[Emil]

Nothing the OP has written is incompatible with focusing on whether being Olympic champion is currently predictive of success at HW, and the OP never defined what they mean by success so there aren't any clear goalposts to be moved. It comes down to individual conceptions of what that term means as I've noted, and I don't take a definition of success as being the top pro fighter in the world to be the only viable one.

Related to the issues of amateurs who never turned pro and those who boxed long ago, one of the most important intellectual abilities is being able to use context to discern what someone means. In the OP's list only Olympic champions going back roughly 30 years are mentioned, the upcoming 2016 Olympics are noted, and later the OP responds to one of your posts by specifically narrowing the conversation to 'modern' fighters, all of which show a clear focus on recent examples and not ones from nearly a century ago or more, which constitute many of you the cases you list in which the Olympic champion didn't achieve much professionally. The nature of the OP's inquiry is also focused on what winning gold suggests about someone's likely pro success, which can't be discerned from evaluating fighters who never turned pro.

So, given the context around the question, the evidence available, and what I think is one reasonable standard of success, I'd say that there is a clear and positive relationship between winning an Olympic gold medal and having success professionally at the weight, even though some clearly have reached the levels that others did.

You beat me to it. Glad someone said it and glad someone stand up to fergs biased use of statistics and inconsistent rambling that unfortunately other posters so often falls for.

[Lackeos]

If you take into account the age of the winner, then yeah, the super heavyweight gold can be a good predictor of success. Audley Harrison won it at age 30, that means nothing. Anthony Joshua won it at like age 22, that means something. Strength of the field is also somewhat relevant. Anthony Joshua won gold in a relatively good field -- no all-time greats, but extremely deep. Other fields had some combination of Povetkin, Pulev, Solis, Savon, etc., and were very strong fields. But when predicting potential, every accomplishment needs to be measured in the context of how much age and experience the fighter had at the time, and how many years he has left until his prime is over. Mike Tyson won a junior olympic gold medal, not the same achievement, but he was 15, so there you go.

[olij999]

1984 Biggs, won fair in square but the Cuban’s and Russia federation boycotted the games. As such there is an asterisk.

Not sure many would say he won it fair and square. His final against Francesco Damiani was at best highly controversial.

[Bard of Boxrec]

Uh-oh, he's brought out the 'facts'

[pound per pound]

Nothing the OP has written is incompatible with focusing on whether being Olympic champion is currently predictive of success at HW, and the OP never defined what they mean by success so there aren't any clear goalposts to be moved. It comes down to individual conceptions of what that term means as I've noted, and I don't take a definition of success as being the top pro fighter in the world to be the only viable one.

Related to the issues of amateurs who never turned pro and those who boxed long ago, one of the most important intellectual abilities is being able to use context to discern what someone means. In the OP's list only Olympic champions going back roughly 30 years are mentioned, the upcoming 2016 Olympics are noted, and later the OP responds to one of your posts by specifically narrowing the conversation to 'modern' fighters, all of which show a clear focus on recent examples and not ones from nearly a century ago or more, which constitute many of you the cases you list in which the Olympic champion didn't achieve much professionally. The nature of the OP's inquiry is also focused on what winning gold suggests about someone's likely pro success, which can't be discerned from evaluating fighters who never turned pro.

So, given the context around the question, the evidence available, and what I think is one reasonable standard of success, I'd say that there is a clear and positive relationship between winning an Olympic gold medal and having success professionally at the weight, even though some clearly have reached the levels that others did.

I guess I need to clarify success for the gold medal winners in the amateurs. For the purpose of this thread, success is winning a version of the WBC, WBA, IBF, or WBO championship as a professional heavyweight. I think we need to disqualify the fighters who won gold, but were not allowed to turn professional due to political reasons.

From 1964 to present, here are the results:

• Joe Frazier: (W = 32; L = 4; D = 1) = A dead-cert all-time great who held the world heavyweight title from 1968 until 1973

George Foreman: (W = 76; L = 5) = A two-time world heavyweight champion, scorimg victories over the likes of Joe Frazier, Kenny Norton and Michael Moorer. One of the biggest punchers in heavyweight history


• Henry Tillman: (W = 25; L = 6) = He never made it as a top-tier world-class fighter ** Won gold in a very weak field with no cubans or soviet's.**

• Ray Mercer: (W = 36; L = 7; D = 1) = Briefly held the WBO world heavyweight title, but wasn't quite good enough to make it as a top-tier world-class fighter, despite his competitive fights against Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield


• Odlanier Solís: (W = 20; L = 3) = Despite a promising start to his career, he never maintained his weight and fitness levels, resulting in him being stopped in the 1st round of his only shot at the world title. Has subsequently ballooned to weighing more than 270lbs and no longer commands respect as an opponent


• Rakhim Chakhkiev: (W = 23; L = 1) = Currently campaigning as a cruiserweight, was KO'd in his only shot at the world title and is currently regarded as a fringe contender

• Oleksandr Usyk: (W = 7) = Has only recently begun his professional career as cruiserweight and is only a novice
*** Looks like the best cruiser, could be the man after Wlad retires. Too young to rate **

• Tyrell Biggs: (W = 30; L = 10) = Was absolutely battered by Mike Tyson when he gained a premature shot at the world title and was subsequently considered as a journeyman for rising stars to gain knockouts for their highlight reels

• Lennox Lewis: (W = 41; L = 2; D = 1) = A three time world heavyweight champion, considered one of the all-time-greats, scoring victories over the likes of Evander Holyfield, Mike Tyson and Vitali Klitschko


• Wladimir Klitschko: (W = 64; L = 3) = One of the longest reigning heavyweight champions of all time

• Audley Harrison: (W = 31; L = 7) = A domestic level fighter that managed to briefly capture the European title, before being KO'd inside three rounds by David Haye, whilst managing to only land a single jab throughout the entire fight

• Alexander Povetkin: (W = 29; L = 1) = Is currently rated as the second best heavyweight on the planet, behind Wladimir Klitschko who decked him four times en route to losing by a lop-sided 119-104 margin on the scorecards. Has never held a legitimate "senior" version of the world title

• Anthony Joshua: (W = 13) = Has only recently begun his professional career and is only a novice. ** Too early to rate **


Tally:

6 Gold medal winners were successful enough to win a world title belt.
5 Crashed and burned
2 are too early to call.

Success rate = 54.5% in modern times since 1964.