Amateur, white collar or unlicensed?

[BigT1992]

as a late starter to boxing I'm looking for advice on the best route for me in terms of training and competition, I'm 24 now but started at 21 boxing on the white collar circuit and had 3 fights in my first 6 months then got injured and have trained on and off since then, I've now decided I want to do things properly especially given my age so would like to carry on until I no longer can but I'm not sure which route to go down. There's plenty of white collar boxing around me but I'm not sure I want to be boxing in a head guard and 16oz gloves for the rest of my life on a platform where anyone can get involved and have a go, ideally I'd like to do things properly and get licensed as an amateur and box in the amateurs on a regular basis but it seems that in my area (bedfordshire) senior amateur boxing is a dying breed, I've been to gyms and it's mainly young lads sort of late teens early 20s in the lower weight classes, I'm 90kg when in shape but currently sitting at 97kg so there's never many lads my weight I can spar with which makes me question how I'd be able to find matches, also I've found that a lot of the trainers don't seem to take
ME seriously and they tend to focus on the younger lads which is fair enough if they've been there a while I just want the opportunity to compete. The other option is semi pro/unlicensed but I've heard it can be a bit dodgy with mismatches and safety etc but I've been told if I find a decent promotion then it's a good platform and I could fight with no headgear and smaller gloves, in a nutshell I'm a 24 year old lad looking for fights 90-100kg what's the best platform these days and is amateur an option?

[Richard P]

Hi

Yeah the white collar is good but very limited in talent, I did some years and years ago before they've blown up on the scene and not like they are now. When I've watched guys fight on them recently, it tends to be 3 rounds of swinging for the hills, no form, no one wants to box and just boils down to aggression.

I would say the AM route is best, most rewarding but hard to get going on your age. Coaches tend to focus on genuine prospects, (this seems to be a country wide thing IMO) and those prospects are often young who have been with them for time.

The semi pro thing is OK providing you have a good gym around you who do things properly, with a good reputation. You are right in saying mismatches happen and a training buddy fought as the 'away' fighter in Portsmouth, battered the guy for three rounds, busted his nose and dropped him and he goes and loses by unanimous decision. You should have seen their faces afterwards, not a mark on our lad and the Portsmouth chap looked like he'd been in a head on crash.

AM is the way to go, you just need to show your dedication, you are at the gym to work hard, to learn, to better yourself. I've lost count of the members that come in to the gym and then disappear after 8 months - not through lack of ability, just attitude wrong, just want to fight people, not their to listen, to learn, to help other fighters