BEYOND TOKYO
@BoxingNewsJD
The very best action, previews and news from Olympic-style boxing
SEND us your club’s news, results or upcoming events to john.dennen@kelsey.co.uk or 0195 954 3747
IT used to be simpler. Make a name at the Olympic Games and wait for the offers from professional promoters to roll in. Spend many months mulling them over, secure a lucrative future in the process and eventually turn over, maybe even an entire year after the Games. But post-Tokyo the picture is more complex.
For a start, some of the medallists in Japan were already professional boxers. The rules allowing pros into the Olympics were relaxed for Rio 2016, though back then in Brazil the pro boxers made little impression. In Japan there was a professional belt-holder, France’s Maiva Hamadouche who left without a medal after losing to Mira Potkonen. In fact, it was early career professional boxers, ones who had either managed to balance parallel progress in Olympic-style tournaments with a few pro bouts, or boxers who’d had some pro contests before being brought back into their national team. Duke Ragan, for instance, won Olympic silver in one of the most hotly contested divisions in Tokyo. But the featherweight is already signed
