Amateur Career
Bentt won four New York Golden Gloves titles and five United States Amateur Boxing Championships. After having won the bronze medal at the 1986 World Amateur Boxing Championships and the 1987 PanAmerican Games he placed a controversial second in the 1988 United States Olympic Trials to the eventual 1988 Olympic Gold Medalist, Ray Mercer.
As both his mother and father are Jamaican citizens, he won the right to fight on the Jamaican Olympic Boxing Team after stopping the island nation's top amateur heavyweights in the 1988 Jamaican Olympic Trials. However, when confronted with the provision that he would have to relinquish his United States citizenship in order to accompany the Jamaican team to Seoul,he refused. Bentt is regarded as the most decorated boxer in the history of American amateur boxing never to have competed on a United States Olympic boxing team.
His other amateur titles included the 1981 New York City Police Athletic League Champion, 1980 NYC Kids Gloves Champion, Empire State Games Heavyweight Champion (1982, 1983, 1984). He was a three-time selected member of the United States All-American National Boxing Team (1985, 1986, 1987), captain of the 1986 United States Goodwill Games Boxing Team and the 1987 United States Pan American Games Boxing Team. He was a bronze medalist in each of those competitions. He also received the bronze medal at the 1985 World Amateur Championships in Seoul, South Korea and the gold medal at the 1985 North American Championship in Beaumont, Texas.
In 1985, he was the recipient of the Sugar Ray Robinson Award as the most outstanding boxer in the New York Golden Gloves tournament that year(among the 85' class of Golden Gloves champions were future professional champions Riddick Bowe, Kevin Kelly and Junior Jones). Bentt was also a three time member of the United States All-American Amateur Boxing Team.
Bentt counts as one of the greatest moments of his amateur boxing career as avenging an earlier defeat suffered at the hands of then three-time World Amateur Heavyweight Champion, Alexander Yagubkin, at the 1986 World Championships in Reno, Nevada.
Before the loss to Bentt, Yagubkin had been victorious over every American heavyweight he encountered during a three-year period. This included a Moscow decision-win over Bentt's older brother Winston, himself a member of the United States National Team. Bentt remained undefeated domestically for a four-year period before being denied an Olympic team berth at the 1988 United States Olympic Trials.
In homage to Stephan Johnson, a former amateur teammate at the Bed-Stuy famed (Bedford-Stuyvesant) Boxing Association and fellow Golden Glover who succumbed to injuries suffered in a professional boxing match in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Michael privately presented Stephan's mother with a pair of his own New York Golden Gloves champion medallions.
Although he was the officially selected team alternate at 201 lbs Bentt declined to serve as an alternate on the 1988 Olympic Boxing Team.
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