Andrew Maynard (boxer)

Andrew Maynard started boxing while serving in the U.S. Army, he was a cook in Fort Carson, Colorado, his latest military rank was specialist.[1]

As an amateur, Maynard was a relentless pressure fighter, often throwing 1000 punches per fight. Maynard was the 1987 and 1988 United States Amateur Champion in the Light Heavyweight division. He won a bronze medal at the 1987 Pan American Games, where he first burst into international prominence beating up on Cuban world champion Pablo Romero, only to collapse in the 2nd round without being hit. Later, Maynard acknowledged he had suffered a broken ankle during a pickup basketball game the day before the Romero bout but didn't tell about it to anybody. "I figure that I owed myself some kind of a gold medal after that situation," he said. So at the 1988 Summer Olympics Maynard methodically avoided all basketball courts in Seoul.[2]

Pan Am Box-offs (178 lbs), International Center of the Broadmoor, Colorado Springs, Colorado, July 1987:

• Defeated Joseph Pemberton

Maynard won the Light Heavyweight Gold Medal for the United States at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. Results were:

• First round bye
• Defeated Mikaele Masoe (American Samoa) RSC 2
• Defeated Lajos Erős (Hungary) 5-0
• Defeated Henryk Petrich (Poland) TKO 3
• Defeated Nurmagomed Shanavazov (Soviet Union) 5-0

Maynard began his professional career the following year for the Team of Mike Trainer/Sugar Ray Leonard. Maynard himself insisted his management team change his style, and they turned him into a fighter who fought too defensively.

Maynard won his first 12 bouts in the light heavyweight division (175 lbs), prior to getting stopped in the seventh round by Bobby Czyz. Maynard then went on a six fight winning streak, stopping former world light heavyweight champion Matthew Saad Muhammad in 1991, setting up a fight with Frank Tate. Tate dropped Maynard in the 11th round, prompting referee Joe Santarpia to stop the fight.

The following year Maynard moved up to cruiserweight to challenge WBC World Cruiserweight champion Anaclet Wamba, who knocked Maynard down and won a unanimous decision.

After losing to Wamba, Maynard fought on in obscurity. Among his notable fights which followed were a knockout loss to Thomas Hearns and a stoppage at heavyweight to Brian Nielsen. Maynard retired in 2000 and lives in Harlingen, Texas with his common law wife Cynthia Ann Montgomery

• Boxing record for Andrew Maynard from BoxRec