When it comes to wrestling, judo and boxing they are at a good level. They can compete in an international level. On the amateur level it is extremely high. Transitioning to MMA for them would be easy. I think we will see a lot more Cubans in MMA as it gets easier for them to complete.
You see guys in amateur contest who are much better conditioned than the professionals. To me the professionals should be better. Just because they are bigger, it doesn’t mean they are better.
Jerry Brisco, who is a WWE Hall of Famer, goes out and scouts all of the amateur wrestling.
But somehow, I felt no inclination to be interested in it in any amateur way, let alone professional, until suddenly I became interested. And the first thing I did was to compose: not play an instrument, but to compose.
I did ballet, tap and modern dance – I loved Janet Jackson with a passion – and I was good enough to star in lots of amateur shows.
There wasn’t anyone in my family who was involved in the theatre. I saw a few amateur plays when I was growing up, but I can’t think of anything that happened or anybody in particular who inspired me; it all came from within.
There are great amateur bodies that have good programs right from the grassroots level to professionals.
You just have to play it cool. You don’t want everyone to know you’re an amateur.
Before television, there was a piano in many homes in this country. People played instruments on an amateur level and because of that, they became informed amateurs. We’ve lost that.
When I was a kid, I wrestled my high school amateur wrestling in junior year.
It wasn’t until ’79 I won my first amateur championship, and then, by ’81, I was 14, and I won my first world championship, which was amazing to me, and in a very real sense, that was the first real victory I had.
There were a lot of gifted amateurs in my day. Most of the kids now play fantastically well. I think there are so many bands around now who might get there, but it’s a tougher journey.
It’s different today than it was then. In those days we were strictly amateurs. If I had wanted to stay in for the ’80 Olympics, my parents couldn’t have afforded it.
I think for a lot of amateurs, their alignment is always out.
When I went to college, I came across MMA. My first reaction was, ‘No, I don’t want to fight. I just want to learn jujitsu.’ I didn’t know what UFC was; in my mind it was this violent, ugly sport. But when I watched my first amateur fight, I fell in love with the sport and thought it was beautiful.
I do uphill skiing; I don’t do downhill skiing. I think that’s for nerd amateurs.
To allow our audiences to watch more professionally produced video content, we acquired Major League Gaming – MLG – and we expect MLG to become the ‘ESPN of Videogames’ with a focus on the celebration of gamers, both amateur and professionals.
I’m a real amateur enthusiast for science.
History is one of the only fields where contributions by amateurs are taken seriously, providing you follow the rules and document your sources. In history, it’s what you write, not what your credentials are.
There were two drama societies in Enniskillen when I was growing up, St. Michaels and the Enniskillen Amateur Dramatic Society, and I had the pleasure of working with them both.
When I told people my plan was to knock everyone out in the amateurs and become world champion as quickly as I could as a professional, a lot of people said it was impossible.
I can find my way from 500 A.D. through to 1066 pretty well as an amateur historian.
You go from Olympic wrestling into pro wrestling, and it’s a very difficult transition, but if you make it, you can earn a great living while at the same time giving amateur wrestling a lot of exposure by being on TV every week. Fans know where you came from.
Everyone says I should write a natural history or landscape book because if I have an area of amateur expertise, it is in those things.
Look, I debate for a living so I don’t need to learn any lessons from amateurs.
I always wanted to wrestle, but when you’re a kid, how do you do pro wrestling? For me, it seemed like the easiest way for me was to get into amateur wrestling and go that route because it was a place where I was allowed to go.
I was an amateur wrestler, which I loved. It was my passion, but I started really late; I was a junior in high school when I began.
I’m a director! I don’t work with no amateurs!
I’m an amateur.
There are so many great 19th-century photographers, and it’s really my favorite period, but the amateurs did such beautiful work.
I’m a product of amateur wrestling, and there is no one there to help you with matches or win matches – you have to do it yourself.
There is an enormous shadow industry of scammers and amateurs who prey on aspiring writers, who divert people from the real publishing industry into this shadow world of vanity publishing and fee-charging agents.
I’m really considering getting into amateur wrestling and getting into more tournaments. I’m looking into going to do some Jiu-Jitsu tournaments. I’m looking into everything.
I’ve played such good golf, and it was hard coming up and it wasn’t easy in any matches or any shots. It means a lot. I think hopefully it will mean a lot to New Zealand because I’m the next winner of the U.S. Amateur after Danny Lee.
Every artist was first an amateur.
I’m not going to be a guy that retires and keeps coming back. When I’m gone, I’m gone. Same thing as amateur wrestling; when I won the world championships in Olympics, I left and I never went back. Same for pro.
International Amateur Atheletic Federation had selected me in 1985 and 1986 as one of the best eight athletes in the world.
I’ve loved musical theater ever since I was a kid. My mother’s a pianist, and my grandfather was an amateur theater director and stand-up comic. And I was an only child. And I loved attention. So from an early age, my family was teaching old musical songs.
I started doing amateur theatre and played Rosa Parks at the age of 12 or 13. At 16, I decided it was what I wanted to do.
I’ve had 12 amateur fights, 18 professional fights and I’ve come to Russia, not just to Russia but to Chelyabinsk, home of Sergey Kovalev who has an impressive resume. The fact I’ve come to his backyard means I feel it will go down as one of the best results ever.
Growing up as an amateur, I wasn’t much of a power puncher. I was more of a speed guy.
Both my parents were amateur badminton players. My father is a scientist and wanted me to be a doctor. But my mom was very aggressive and loved badminton. She pushed me right from the age of nine to take up the sport.
I once played amateur tournament tennis six months without double-faulting.
The prime directive of media training is that the question never matters. That an honest response is for amateurs. Media trainers advise memorizing a set of non-responses and repeating them no matter what question is asked.
I boxed, I was 2-0 as far as amateur boxing and it was fun but I didn’t really want to compete no more.
For me, a late start was a good thing. A lot of kids who start too early get bored. I’d done all the things I wanted to do, I’d enjoyed myself, having fun and playing as an amateur and that was important.
A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.
For Pakistan cricket to stay relevant and strong, the best players have to be available all the time – it’s a challenge faced by everyone, but one that particularly relates to us because of our mainly amateur, pretty random, and certainly too thinly spread domestic structure that feeds the national team.
Me and Bellew, we started off in the same amateur gym together.
On a very personal note, my dear friend, the late Steve ‘Dr. Death’ Williams was a four-time amateur wrestling All-American who also lettered and started four years on the football team at Oklahoma. I’ve met no man walking the face of the earth tougher than Doc. R.I.P., my friend.
The recording companies are continuing to look at ways to buy short and sell long. So now they give recording deals to groups of people who we refer to as ‘garage bands’ – they are amateurs who are bought for nothing and it’s really a shame.
I’ve dubbed myself as an amateur, not because I work in different field, but because I do what I do for love.
My true love is with amateur wrestlin;, that’s where I was born. I’ve always wanted to wrestle.
I’m very, very amateur, which is funny because I’m not in the amateur leagues.
I didn’t even know about amateur boxing, period.
Kurt Angle was amazing. He was the person who got me into pro wrestling. He found me when I was at the Olympic training center just wrestling, amateur wrestling.
I did some traveling as an amateur and always loved the different places I saw.
I remember leaving the hospital – thinking, ‘Wait, are they going to let me just walk off with him? I don’t know beans about babies! I don’t have a license to do this.’ We’re just amateurs.
My interest was magic, believe it or not. I became an amateur magician and did something like 400 magic shows through my teen years.
As a professional journalist who nonetheless champions a ‘people’s’ Internet, I am happy to compete against the thousands of amateur bloggers out there reporting and commenting on the same stories I do.
