SPORTSCLOPEDIA 7: FLOYD MAYWEATHER JR. HAS AMATEUR LOSSES INCLUDING 1996 OLYMPIC DEFEAT
By Maloney L. Samaco
PhilBoxing.com
Fri, 06 Jan 2023
Floyd Mayweather Jr., now aged 45, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S.A., has an immaculate record of 50-0-0 with 27 KO wins as a professional. But he had an amateur record of 84 wins and 8 losses. He won the national Golden Gloves championships in 1993, 1994 and 1996.
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At the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Mayweather won a bronze medal by reaching the semi-finals of the featherweight division.
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In his first Olympic fight, Mayweather led 10–1 on points against Bakhtiyar Tileganov of Kazakhstan, when the fight was stopped by the referee. In his second bout, Mayweather defeated Artur Gevorgyan of Armenia on points, 16–3.
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In the quarterfinal action, Mayweather, then 19-years-old, defeated the 22-year-old Lorenzo Aragon of Cuba in an action-packed match to win by a hairline, 12–11, thus becoming the first American boxer to defeat a Cuban opponent in 20 years. The last time this happened was during the 1976 Montreal Olympics, when the U.S. Olympic boxing team won five gold medals, led by Sugar Ray Leonard.
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In the Olympic semifinal match against ultimate silver medalist Serafim Todorov of Bulgaria, Mayweather lost a controversial decision which was of the same nature to Roy Jones Jr.'s very controversial loss to Park Si-hun at the 1988 Summer Olympics. Referee Hamad Hafaz Shouman of Egypt even committed a mistake by raising Mayweather's hand thinking the American had won, while the decision was announced awarding the victory to the Bulgarian foe.
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The U.S. team filed a protest over the Mayweather controversial loss, claiming the judges were intimidated by Bulgaria's Emil Jetchev, the head of the boxing officials, by favoring the Bulgarian Todorov via a 10–9 decision in the featherweight semifinal bout.
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Three of Jetchev's fellow Bulgarians advanced to gold medal bouts. Judge Bill Waeckerle, who is one of the four U.S. judges working for the International Amateur Boxing Federation, resigned as Olympic Games and Federation judge due to the Mayweather loss, which was loudly booed by the pro-American crowd at the Alexander Memorial Coliseum.
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In their official protest, U.S. team manager Gerald Smith alleged Mayweather connected several punches that were not counted, while Todorov gained points without even landing a punch. The judges did not implement a mandatory two-point deduction against Todorov after he was warned five times by the referee for slapping.
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"Everybody knows Floyd Mayweather is the gold-medal favorite at 57 kilograms," Mayweather declared after the contested decision. "In America, it's known as 125 pounds. You know and I know I wasn't getting hit. They say he's the world champion. Now you all know who the real world champion is."
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Mayweather was nicknamed "Pretty Boy" by his amateur teammates due to the few scars in his head and face, because of the defensive techniques that his father Floyd Sr. and uncle Roger Mayweather had trained him.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Maloney L. Samaco.
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