Light-Heavyweight (≤81 kilograms), Men

For reasons of non-selection and boycott the competition was bereft of both of the most recent World Championships finalists, the World Cup winner and the winners of the European Championships and Pan-American Games. Twenty-year-old American Andrew Maynard, a soldier stationed at Fort Carson in Colorado, was able to benefit from their absence and win a deserved Olympic title. The gold medal bout against Nurmagomed Shanavazov of the Soviet Union was not a thing of beauty and was described by a newspaper columnist as like watching )Two angry wildebeests shoulder-charging each other around the ring) but the American did enough to win a clear decision. Maynard, who had joined the Army after being involved in drug dealing and robbery, began a professional career that failed to live up to his early promise and lost 13 of his 39 bouts.