When you see interviews with or the biographies of fighters before say 1970 who fought in the amateurs, what you often read about is nothing of the sort. At least given the way we think of amateur fights today.
Today true amateur fights are often/always conducted in some sort of tournament, often conducted (in the US) over a weekend. Fighters who succeed will often fight 3-4 times in that weekend.
But that's not what the older eras "amateur" fights consisted of. Yes there were occasional tournaments like the Golden Gloves, which began in the late 1920's, or in Olympic Trials. But far more often what were conducted were what today are called "smokers." What would happen is promoters who focused on the "amateur" game would arrange a card for a specific location where each fighter would fight once. Now usually these were 3 round fights, judged as pro fights were, no headgear etc. But here's the big distinction. These were literally prizefights. The winner of each fight got some token, a watch, a trophy, a ring which they could immediately sell back to the promoter for $5 or $10. Maybe the equivalent of $50 bucks today. Now the money's not big, but this kind of fighting might be better described as Junior Pro rather than amateur.
At least in Hawaii today, this practice continues. Our gym gets called 3-4 times a year by a wealthy residents who want to put on a show for a social event at their home. Usually there are two what I'd call serious fights. To 20+ year old part time pros I guess you'd call them. These guys have real jobs, but train regularly and they know their job is simply to put on a show. The winner might make $500 and the loser $250 or so. If we are traveling between islands the host pays travel expenses as well. These fights are usually 6-8 rounds. Then we'll arrange 3-4 bootleg fights like I described in the paragraph above. In our case the kids wear headgear and the person hosting the event knows up front we will be very protective of the kids. The host provides cash to the trainers who run the gyms involved (it usually takes at least two gyms to make a good, competitive and safe card) half of which stays with the club for expenses and equipment and the rest of which gets distributed to the winning kids. And man do the kids love it. Obviously these fights don't get reported and the whole thing is illegal because they are unpermitted and because there is usually a pretty active betting seen, even with the kids fights.
Do you folks see "bootleg amateur" or "smokers" where you are?
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