Amateur Level
Well was a member of the US Air Force and already the four-time All-Air Force boxing champion when he won the 1972 US Amateur heavyweight championship. In that year, he knocked out future WBC and IBF heavyweight champion Larry Holmes twice. The first time was in the 3rd round of a National Amateur Athletic Union tournament; later that year, in the US Olympic Trials, he knocked Holmes out in the first round. He went on to face 1971 US Amateur heavyweight champion Duane Bobick in the finals of the Olympic Trials, where he broke Bobick's nose early in the fight and appeared to be on his way to representing the United States in the Olympics. But Wells had suffered a head wound before the fight at his hotel, and the fight was stopped by the referee when it began to bleed profusely. Bobick went on to lose to Cuban heavyweight and eventual gold medal winner Teofilo Stevenson in the Olympic quarterfinals.
One of the most popular amateur boxers in Texas during the 1970s, Wells was a five-time Fort Worth Golden Gloves champion and a two-time Star-telegram Texas State Golden Gloves champion. Three-time Texas state champion, in 1969, 1970, 1971. Five time all air force champion, in 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976. Two-time interservice champion in 1973, 1975. Three-time interservice runner up in 1972, 1974, 1976. Two-time Nevada state golden gloves champion in 1972, 1973. He was the 1972 National AAU Champion, as well as the Western Hemisphere Champion in 1972 or 1973. He also held the titles of World military Champion (CISM games in 1973) and Texas state champion, in 1971.
Wells compiled an amateur record of 189-18 with 110 knockouts, 72 of them in the first round.
Read more about this topic: Nick Wells, Career
Famous quotes containing the words amateur and/or level:
“I have been reporting club meetings for four years and I am tired of hearing reviews of the books I was brought up on. I am tired of amateur performances at occasions announced to be for purposes either of enjoyment or improvement. I am tired of suffering under the pretense of acquiring culture. I am tired of hearing the word “culture” used so wantonly. I am tired of essays that let no guilty author escape quotation.”
—Josephine Woodward, U.S. author. As quoted in Everyone Was Brave, ch. 3, by William L. O’Neill (1969)
“It is the American vice, the democratic disease which expresses its tyranny by reducing everything unique to the level of the herd.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)