olympic gold medalist who failed as a pro

[SBleeder]

Would be very grateful if one of our resident historians could properly explain to me the bewildering mystery of Pete Rademacher.

White, good-looking, presumably very marketable American boy wins the Olympic gold medal at heavyweight and his first fight - literally his pro debut -is for the professional world heavyweight title against Floyd Patterson.

Who exactly managed Pete...the Marquis De Sade, Stalin, Ivan the Terrible or was it just someone utterly innept, village-idiot bloke called Cleetus?

Second fight for Pete - a time surely to rebuild and learn the pro business after a huge, ill-fated disaster - well, it had to be the ever-dangerous, often-avoided and vastly more experienced Zora Folley.

Rademacher failed as a pro but I am very interested to know why he was viewed as so expendable. It would be good to have some sage answers.

Probably had more to do with Custom Auto cherry-picking Patterson's opponents.

[Bodyshot3]

@SBleeder...thanks for the feedback mate, but one would have hoped the Rademacher team would have had the brains to think that a fight with Floyd might have kept for a few months (at least get a couple of fights under the belt) and spotted that they were the proverbial cherry.

There's still something seriously odd/unheard of about an Olympic heavyweight champion fighting for the professional title on his debut. Even in an era of tough, no nonsense matchmaking this looks brutal and curious.

What happened here, a huge pile of cash that would allow Pete to retire whatever the result and maybe Rademacher was a seriously reluctant pro convert who needed to be tempted to fight for massive money?

This one is a mystery to me.....

[mickey malone]

@SBleeder...thanks for the feedback mate, but one would have hoped the Rademacher team would have had the brains to think that a fight with Floyd might have kept for a few months (at least get a couple of fights under the belt) and spotted that they were the proverbial cherry.

There's still something seriously odd/unheard of about an Olympic heavyweight champion fighting for the professional title on his debut. Even in an era of tough, no nonsense matchmaking this looks brutal and curious.

What happened here, a huge pile of cash that would allow Pete to retire whatever the result and maybe Rademacher was a seriously reluctant pro convert who needed to be tempted to fight for massive money?

This one is a mystery to me.....

Yes, a bizarre mystery, and it makes you wonder how a lot of fighters would've got on, had they fought for the title on their debut. Would the same thing have happened to a young Cassius Clay? and Foreman if he'd fought Ali in 69, or Frazier if he'd fought Liston in 65?... And i find myself thinking, it could well have done.

[1SILVA]

audley harrison is the usual name that is brought up but can anybody name any others

* fail as in failing to capture a world title

Paul Gonzales
Mohammad Abdulaev

[mickey malone]

Paul Gonzales
Mohammad Abdulaev

Good calls!..

I remember both of them now... Beaten by Orlando Canizales and Miguel Cotto respectively.

[Cardinal Buck]

KoKo Kovacs didn't do to well, although he briefly held the WBO title.

[mickey malone]

Robert Wangila from Kenya had one terrible pro career.

Another good call...

Wangila actually looked like quite a prospect when he turned pro, and to be fair, was'nt a bad boxer, but soon discovered he could'nt take a punch without the headgear.

[BennyST]

Steve McRory.

Brother of Milton. Won the Flyweight Gold against Redžep Redžepovski who had won a controversial decision over Jeff Fenech to get there.

McRory had a lot of hype going into his pro career, and was thought to be a future star and was thus given a very early title fight that he was expected to win, which was also a huge grudge match scheduled between him and Fenech, who had gone on from his Olympic defeat to become the fastest ever world titlist time wise, winning in only 6 months and 7 fights.

Anyway, because of the controversy surrounding the Fenech/Redzep match, it was thought that the medal should have been fought between McCrory and Fenech, so this was hyped up as two undefeated future stars (thought little was known about Fenech still at this point apart from here obviously) fighting in their delayed Olympic match.

Unfortunately for McRory, he was facing a man possessed, in his prime, on his way to becoming one of the greatest little men to ever fight and was on a tear from the bitter Olympic defeat. People just didn't know at this point what an incredible fighter Fenech was to become.

Unfortunately, he brutally punished McRory. McRory sadly had too much heart for his own good and refused to quit. Over the course of the fight, Fenech fought like a young Duran. Insane, non stop violence. The more McRory wilted under the onslaught the more brutal Fenech seemed to get, and he set such a torrid, violent pace that really hadn't been seen since the days of a prime Duran.

For 14 brutal rounds, McRory took a hideous beating to the body and head that all his defense and ring savvy couldn't save him from, until he was eventually worn down and stopped on his feet as he stumbled around the ring, beaten down.

He never regained his form and really had whatever potential destroyed by getting thrown in too early. It's a tricky one though, because Fenech had only had about 11 fights too from memory, and while he was still largely unknown, he had already fought and defeated some great fighters.

[BennyST]

Laszlo Papp retired undefeated as a pro but I believe he never won a world title
Howard Davis Jr never won a world title I don't believe
Audley Harrison obviously.
James DeGale though his careers still going, I'm not sure hes capable of taking a world title.

Nope. Just couldn't bag it. He got pretty close a couple of times, especially in his war with Rosario. Just couldn't take his punch though....few could.

He was rushed a little bit too. He fought some tough guys early on and they should have seen that he needed bringing along a little more before his title shot. Before losing to Jim Watt, he had a very close fight with Vilomar Fernandez, a very underrated crafty little boxer, that gave him fits and knocked him down, but lost a close decision.

He just needed a little more experience...and maybe a better chin.

[Hop]

Duane Bobick never won Olympic gold, as we know (little bump in the road named Teófilo Stevenson), but was a Pan American Games gold medalist in 1971 (beating Stevenson to do so, BTW). Thought I'd mention Bobick in this thread b/c he was definitely one on whom many pinned sky-high hopes and expectations, but who never came near realizing them. (The Norton and Tate fights still haunt me.)