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What is the difference between amateur boxing and professional boxing?

Six differences between professional boxing and amateur boxing

By AIIenPublished 2 years ago 16 min read
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1. The nature of the competition is different

The purpose of amateur boxing is to exercise, improve the level of sports skills and promote friendship. The competitions participated in represent countries or regions, and the level of sports skills reflects the comprehensive strength of a country or region to carry out the sport.

Professional boxers compete in purely commercial entertainment. Boxers fight to make money. No matter what the result of the match is, if you participate in the competition without violating the rules of the game, after the match, the boxer can get the remuneration agreed upon by both parties in advance.

2. Different wearing protection

The most obvious sign of a professional boxer playing is that he does not wear a helmet, but only shorts. The only protection for the boxer is the tooth tray in the mouth. Finish.

Amateur boxing places great emphasis on boxer safety. In addition to clenching the teeth like professional boxers, boxers wear helmets, vests, and use more primitive boxing gloves than professional boxers. Most matches are determined by points, and it is rare to knock down or disparity. No smeared tattoos and designs are allowed.

3. The division of magnitude is different

Because professional boxing has relatively few protection measures for boxers due to the commercial nature, the competition time on the court is rather long. Therefore, the World Boxing Organization has very strict classification standards for weights, especially the light and small divisions. Professional boxing is divided into 17 levels from 48kg to over 86.2kg, with a difference of 38kg, with an average of only 2.2kg per level.

Compared with the division of weight in professional boxing, amateur boxing is much looser. Due to the short competition system and complete protection measures for boxers, the division of weight classes is not as fine as professional boxing. The Olympic Games set 11 weight classes, with a gap of 10 kg from 81kg to 91kg, and from 48kg to 91+kg, with a gap of 43kg.Six differences between professional boxing and amateur boxing

At present, many international sports are no longer divided into "amateur" and "professional". However, due to the misunderstanding of people's understanding of boxing with direct physical confrontation for a long time, two different forms of boxing are still popular in boxing - amateur boxing and professional boxing. In addition to the huge difference in sports level and competition rules between professional and amateur boxing, there are also great differences and differences in the nature, time, protection, weight, publicity and adjudication of the event.

Difference 1: The nature of the competition is different

Professional boxers compete in purely commercial entertainment. Boxers fight to make money. No matter what the result of the boxer is in the match, as long as you step into the boxing ring and participate in the competition without violating the rules of the game, after the match, the boxer can get the remuneration agreed upon by both parties in advance. The amount of compensation for professional boxers varies greatly depending on the level of the boxer and the level of influence in the boxing arena. The general market is that heavyweight boxers are paid the most, followed by middleweights, and light and small divisions are less. Boxers worth tens of millions of dollars are like Tyson in their heyday, Huo Huo, and Lewis before retirement. Now, due to the lack of powerful star boxing champions in the heavyweight class, De La Hoya in the middleweight class comes out on top and is worth more than all heavyweight boxing champions.

Since a professional boxer sees boxing as a way of survival, the reward he gets in the competition is the financial guarantee for survival and training to continue competing. At the same time, he must also hire coaches, sparring partners, doctors and other personnel related to training and competition at his own expense. Moreover, the relevant laws of the United States stipulate that professional boxers must have an agent to arrange competitions, and boxers themselves cannot sign any competition agreements with other boxers in private. Therefore, under the constraints of the broker's contract, the boxer's events and actions will be subject to certain constraints and restrictions. The agent has the function of benefiting the boxer and safeguarding the interests of the boxer, which has a great influence on the future development of the boxer. Therefore, the boxer will do everything possible to find the most ideal agent for himself. Of course, the agent must finally get a certain percentage of the compensation for each match (the relevant law stipulates that the agent's income cannot exceed 33% of the boxer's compensation).

The qualification of a boxer to challenge the boxing champion is obtained after countless ranking battles, competition and promotion of the ranking. It is not a boxer who wants to fight with whomever he wants. The key is to see who you are fighting against to make the audience interested.

The purpose of amateur boxing is to exercise, improve sports skills and promote friendship, and it has been moving forward and developing towards the road of physical education. The competitions that amateur boxers participate in represent a country or region, and the level of sports skills reflects the comprehensive strength of a country or region to carry out the sport. Participating fighters only receive medals, no remuneration, and the organization that organizes the competition does not give a penny to the winning athletes. The cost of participating in the competition is invested by the government of the participating countries, and the athletes usually receive government salaries. The highest level of amateur boxing is the boxing competition of the Olympic Games, as well as world championships and intercontinental events, which are official events of the International Amateur Boxing Federation. Boxers who have won medals in these competitions will be awarded different degrees of awards depending on their country or region, because they represent the honor of the country or region.

Difference 2: The time of the game is different

In order to meet the requirements of live audiences and cable network customers, professional boxing matches must guarantee a total of 40 rounds for each boxing match organized. Therefore, a regular boxing championship must find 3 to 4 pairs of boxers who play a mating match to meet the time requirements of the boxing organization. In a professional boxing match, each round is played for 3 minutes, with a 1-minute rest in between. If the entire match is played, the full-time competition system will be 47 minutes, and the actual fighting time of the boxer on the ring is 36 minutes. seriously test.

Amateur boxing has 3 rounds of 3 minutes; 5 rounds of 2 minutes; now it is a 2-minute 4-round system, with a 1-minute rest in the middle, and the whole competition system is 11 minutes. The actual fighting time is only 8 minutes, which is only equivalent to professional boxers. 2 rounds a little more time. This kind of short-course competition is a way to improve the offensive power of amateur boxers due to too many protective gears and lack of appreciation, which increases the intensity of the competition to a certain extent.

Difference 3: Different wearing protection

The most obvious sign of a professional boxer going to the ring is shirtless, no helmet, and only shorts. Shorts come in a variety of shapes and colors. The only protection for the boxer is the tooth tray in the mouth, and the rest can only be done by the boxer himself with the help of defensive skills and his own fighting ability in sports. The biggest purpose of this is to meet commercial needs, and the audience can feel the most original and real impulses from these most intuitive, intense and exciting confrontations. So there have historically been two very different views on boxing (not just professional boxing): some people saw brutality, and some people saw art. These two views are incompatible and have been at odds for a long time, so the calls for the cancellation of the Olympic boxing event have never stopped. Or what the former president of the Olympic Committee said more than 20 years ago when he publicly responded to the Pope and British parliamentarians' call for abolition of boxing: Cars are an indispensable means of transportation for contemporary human production and life. What about stopping the production or use of cars in the unfortunate event? Therefore, since boxing entered the Olympic Games in 1904, it has been a key event of the Olympic Games for 100 years.

Professional boxers not only have simple protection, but also wear lighter and thinner boxing gloves than amateur boxers. They pursue knockdown scenes in competitions and cause more injuries than amateur boxers.

Amateur boxing is very focused on boxer safety. In addition to clenching the teeth like professional boxers, boxers wear helmets, vests, and use more primitive boxing gloves than professional boxers. Most matches are determined by points, and it is rare to knock down or disparity. No smeared tattoos and designs are allowed.

Difference 4: The division of magnitude is different

Because professional boxing has relatively few protection measures for boxers due to the commercial nature, the competition time on the court is rather long. Therefore, the World Boxing Organization has very strict classification standards for weights, especially the light and small divisions. The weight difference between each weight class is only about 1 kilogram, and the big class is slightly wider, but even the light heavyweight with the largest weight difference of 79.4 kilograms transitions to the light heavyweight class of 86.2 kilograms, and there is a difference of 6.8 kilograms. Professional boxing is divided into 17 levels from 48kg to over 86.2kg, with a difference of 38kg, with an average of only 2.2kg per level.

Professional boxers can participate in the ranking competitions of several boxing organizations at the same time. The boxer who has won the championship of each level is called the "champion". The gold belt is a symbol of the title of boxing champion. The boxer who can get the opportunity to compete with the boxing champion is generally the boxing organization. Ranked within the top are eligible for the challenge. Every heavyweight has a champion, and a good boxer can have the opportunity to unify the titles of the same heavyweight champion of several boxing organizations, such as Lewis, Hopkins and so on. A boxer can fight through promotions and promotions, provided that the weight meets the requirements, and must also give up all the honors and rankings you have won in the original class.

Compared with the division of weight in professional boxing, amateur boxing is much looser. Due to the short competition system and complete protection measures for boxers, the division of weight classes is not as fine as professional boxing. Before the Olympic Games, 12 weight classes were set, with an interval of 10 kg from 81 kg to 91 kg, and from 48 kg to 91+ kg, with a gap of 43 kg, and the difference between each class was 3.6 kg. In order to meet the needs of the reform of the Olympic Games, the International Amateur Boxing Federation at the Cairo Conference has decided to change the 12 levels to 11 levels from the current Olympic Games, compressing the original three levels of 63.5, 67, and 71 kg to 64 and 69. kilogram.

Difference 5: Different ways of packaging and publicity

Professional boxing matches are meant to make money. Boxing agents dare to invest in boxers, and promoters dare to spend money to run these large-scale events, just to generate high returns for boxing matches. After a boxer enters the professional boxing world, it is very important to establish prestige and expand influence in the circle. The more influential boxer, the more market appeal.

After the promoters signed the competition, they began to spare no effort to promote the competition, parade and build momentum, create a variety of news release forms, and announce the true and false boxers and boxing information. The purpose is to expand the scope of the competition. , to sell tickets, but also to attract cable TV network customers so that they can share dividends. In order to meet the needs of commercial events, mobilize the emotions of the audience, and increase the warm atmosphere, professional boxing games are even more fuss-free at the boxer's appearance ceremony, which is more exciting than tricks. It's a show more important than watching a boxing match. At the beginning of the professional boxing championship, the challenger will appear first, and after the challenger enters the ring, the boxing champion will appear with the gold belt around the waist. Now the entourage has also been recognized by the boxing organization as a demonstration of strictness by raising his hands over his head. Before the match, the boxing champion handed the gold belt to the referee, and then the referee handed it over to the representative of the World Boxing Organization for safekeeping. If the boxing champion successfully defends the title, the gold belt will continue to belong to the boxing champion; if it fails, the gold belt will be awarded to the new boxing champion who has successfully challenged. . Any champion who defends the title for 4 consecutive years will be awarded a beautiful and expensive official gold belt (about 5,000 US dollars) in a special ceremony, and will own this belt for life; the world champion who defends the title for 3 consecutive years will be awarded A specially crafted World Boxing Organization Medal of Honor.

During the 1-minute break between games, pre-selected female college students with good looks, dressed in enthusiastic but not flashy three-point clothes, circle the field with round ordinal signs in their hands. One is to report the number to the audience; Reduce tension.

Amateur boxing matches do not have such complicated appearance ceremonies and promotions before and after the match. Even if there are no spectators at the scene, the match will still go on. Because Olympic boxing officials and athletes only focus on the fairness of the ranking and the process of the competition, whether the competition is profitable or not is not something they consider. The medals won by the athletes in the previous competition do not need to be carried to the current field. In short, amateur boxing lacks the commercial concentration of professional boxing.

Difference 6: The referee's score is different

In a professional boxing match, there is one on-court referee and three off-stage scoring judges. The three judges sat in three different directions around the ring and scored by hand. At the end of each round, the judges will collect the points they give to the boxers and send them to the representatives of the Boxing Association, who will summarize them on the total score table. Once a judge has given a verdict to a round, there is no opportunity for changes and adjustments to keep the score fair. The scoring method of professional boxing implements a 10-point system, with 10 points for the winner and a minimum of 6 points for the loser.

The scoring standard in professional boxing matches is based on the quality of the punched punch, to see whether the punched punch is accurate, powerful, perfect and impactful, divided into heavy punches and light punches. Backhand straight punches, upper and lower hooks, swing punches, cross punches, powerful jabs, etc. that clearly hit the opponent's important parts are considered heavy punches. Light hits consist of 2 light jabs equal to 1 strong jab, and 3 jabs equal to 1 hard jab. The purpose of the distinction is to reflect the fairness and objectivity of the scoring.

In professional boxing, a knocked-down fighter stands up before the referee reads 3 seconds and loses only 1 point; if he gets up after 3 seconds, he loses 2 points; if he is knocked down several times in the same round, the highest point he loses 4 points; if he can't get up for 10 seconds after being knocked down, the referee can sentence him to be knocked down and lose the game. In a professional boxing match, if there is no limit of 3 knockdowns per round beforehand, the referee on the stage believes that the knockdown does not have much impact on the boxer, and the match can continue; if the referee believes that the boxer has lost the ability to resist, or is injured The extent of the damage is obtained with the consent of the medical supervision of the arena, and the competition can be terminated in time when it is believed that the competition will cause harm to the boxer.

In an amateur boxing match, there is one referee on the stage and five judges off the stage. Two judges sit on the same side under the ring opposite the arbitration committee seat, and the other three judges sit in the middle of the other three sides of the ring. Judges are graded by pressing a computer scale. In order to ensure the safety of the participating boxers, the Amateur Boxing Federation stipulates: First, if the strength of the two boxers is quite different, the referee can terminate the match and award the winner; second, when the boxer is hit hard, the referee must immediately count 8, Even if the boxer returns to normal before 8 seconds and raises his hand to indicate that he can continue the fight, the referee on the stage still has to count 8 seconds. After the second countdown, the referee can terminate the game and award the knockout team the winner. The referee will terminate the game if the knockout person cannot get up within 10 seconds or is incapacitated even if he gets up.

Although both professional boxing and amateur boxing have strict rules and restrictions, there are obvious differences in the scale of the referee's law enforcement: professional boxing is determined by its commercial nature. Intense, hot, and seldom punished for obviously fouls such as collisions, pushes, and twists in boxers competitions. Pursuing the final knockdown makes the competition have dramatic effects. Therefore, professional boxers are technically, physically and mentally. All have higher requirements than amateur boxers.

Amateur boxing is different. Although there is no temptation for high compensation, each contestant represents a country and region to participate in the war, and the honor it has won cannot be measured by money. Therefore, in order to ensure the smooth progress of the competition and reflect the principle of fairness and fairness in the Olympic Games, the referees on the stage are meticulous and strict in the implementation of the competition rules. Any violation shall be punished immediately. The fighter stops the fight or disqualifies the boxer from the fight.

The line between professional boxers and amateur boxers is also very clear. The International Amateur Boxing Federation clearly stipulates that professional boxers are not allowed to participate in amateur boxing matches, and amateur boxers are also not allowed to participate in professional boxing matches. If an amateur fights professionally, it means that he automatically relinquishes his status as an amateur. The reason why Cuban famous boxers Stevenson and Sawan are loved by the Cuban people is because they are willing to give up the temptation of heavy money and the opportunity to make a fortune from the American professional boxing circle for the honor of the Cuban people, and live as amateur boxers for life. The qualifications represent Cuba who have stepped into the Olympic Games 3 times and won the Olympic heavyweight boxing gold medal for Cuba 3 times, showing their strong strength and lofty personality. And to Don King lure Stevenson and

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