(YAHOO SPORT) – US boxing expert Kevin Iole says that amateur boxers today tend to fight like pros and don’t employ the jab like the gold-medal winners of 17 years ago.
The 1984 U.S. Olympic boxing team, which produced nine gold medals, one silver and one bronze, as well as six professional world champions and, when all is said and done, two Hall of Famers, will hold a reunion this weekend in Atlanta. Most of the big names, including Evander Holyfield, Pernell Whitaker, Meldrick Taylor and Mark Breland, will attend.
A likely point of discussion will be why the USA has become an also-ran since its massive haul at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. In the six Games since Los Angeles, the U.S. has won six gold, eight silver and 12 bronze medals.
Breland, a 1984 gold medallist and two-time professional welterweight champion, said the amateurs are fighting a professional style and the U.S. doesn’t place an emphasis on amateur boxing like it used to.
In the 1970s and 1980s, major amateur boxing meets between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, for example, were regularly broadcast on network television. Now, not even the U.S. fights in the Olympics make network television.
And the U.S. amateur fighters lack fundamentals and use a style more suited to the pro game.
“If you watched amateur boxing back then, you saw guys who had fundamentals, who used their jabs, who knew how to fight in the amateur system,” Breland said. “Watch these kids now. Do you see anyone – anyone – using a jab regularly? I pretty much won my fights with my jab.
“The fundamentals of the guys now are non-existent. And the guys that do have talent, they’re fighting like they’re pros.”
As successful as the 1984 boxers were at the Olympics – and the Eastern bloc countries boycotted those Games – they went on to have just as much success in the pro ranks.
Whitaker is one of the greatest fighters ever and has been inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Holyfield will join him in the Hall once he retires.
Taylor was one of the great fighters of his day. Breland posted a 35-3 career mark. Frank Tate won a middleweight title. Virgil Hill had two long reigns as the light heavyweight champion and a brief stint as a cruiserweight champion.
There are no such hopes riding with the current USA boxing team.
“We all want to see it happen,” Breland said of the USA’s return to dominance in amateur boxing. “It’s not like there aren’t good kids out there. But for whatever reason, they’re not being developed into successful (amateur) fighters. That’s got to change.”