Cassius Clay, more famously known as Muhammad Ali, is the clearly the most notable given that he became undoubtedly the greatest champion in history following his gold medal at the Rome 1960 Olympics but other American Olympic gold medallists include the likes  George Foreman, Sugar Ray Leonard, Oscar De La Hoya and, most recently, Andre Ward.

Roy Jones, Jr should also be on the list but was controversially forced to settle for silver at the Seoul 1988 Olympics despite battering an overmatched Park Si-Hun of South Korean in the light-middleweight final while Floyd Mayweather, Jr took bronze at Atlanta 1996 after losing his semi-final bout against eventual silver medallist Serafim Todorov of Bulgaria in a fashion similar to Jones.

Nevertheless, all of these fighters deservedly made the Olympic podium in one way or another and followed their performances at the Games with brilliant professional careers.

Cassius Clay, who later became Muhammad Ali, is one of the great American boxers to have won an Olympic gold medal

The same is unlikely to happen for the abysmal crop of American male fighters that turned up at the London 2012 Olympic Games and failed to win a single medal.

It was only the women that managed to help the country save face - with female boxers making their Olympic debut - as middleweight Claressa Shields claimed gold and flyweight Marlen Esparza a bronze.

Welterweight Errol Spence was the United States' most successful male boxer at the London 2012 Olympics but only reached the quarter-finals. I spoke to him during the Olympics about the demise of America as an Olympic force and he looked almost embarrassed when I mentioned the likes of Ali, Foreman and Leonard.

"I think it was more professional-style boxing when those guys were around," Spence told me somewhat sheepishly. "We are better at professional-style boxing than this amateur style."

Whether Spence is right or not, we will soon find out because in their drive towards professionalism, the International Boxing Association (AIBA) have already ordered the removal of headguards and brought in a professional style scoring system.

But I feel even with this change, USA Boxing will still lag well behind the rest.

Welterweight Errol Spence was the United States’ most successful male boxer at the London 2012 Olympics but only reached the quarter-finals

AIBA President C K Wu told me before the Olympics that there were problems with the organisation and these surfaced dramatically after the Games.

In October 2012 USA Boxing were hit with a three-month suspension by AIBA for retaining their hugely controversial former President Hal Adonis on their Board of Directors. Adonis was originally forced to resign as USA Boxing President after making comments in The New Yorker magazine, where he suggested that homosexuality was rife in female boxing and that all boxers should have suffered child abuse to prosper in the sport.

But, despite stepping down from the top, Adonis was allowed to retain a seat on the Board following a vote on the issue by USA Boxing in a move that caused the AIBA suspension, and was only lifted when Adonis was eventually removed from the Board.

The highly respected Dr Charles Butler replaced Adonis as USA Boxing President which was no real surprise given that he is an AIBA Executive Board member and AIBA Medical Commission chairman.

 

The controversial former USA Boxing President Hal Adonis caused the suspension of the organisation by retaining a seat on their Board of Directors

Butler, alongside a USA Boxing Reform Committee, has helped implement a dramatic overhaul that will see an entire new ten-person Board of directors formed and a complete reshuffle of the organisation.

A wonderfully charismatic man who pulls no punches, Butler refused to hide the failings of USA Boxing in recent years.

"We were the absolute powerhouse of Olympic boxing and now we are the doormat," he told me over the phone. "We need this major change if we want to be a powerhouse again one day."

He was also critical of American fighters hiding behind the amateur excuse. "We saw some people say that the US is more suited to the professional style than the amateur style but I don't agree with that," said Butler. "The rest of the world just caught up with us and then we fell behind because we didn't have the right coaching or training methods in place and we weren't teaching the right values.

"It hurt me when after London 2012 when some of the US Olympic boxers spoke about how much money they are now going to make by turning professional. It was disrespectful after representing your country at the Olympics and it just doesn't demonstrate the right values for our sport. If we want to be a powerhouse again, we need to focus on teaching children the right values to make them successful. I'm talking about talented kids around the age of eight or nine.

"That is what is happening in Great Britain, who are the best boxing nation in the world right now. So I think we will be more successful at Rio 2016 than we were at London 2012 but I think it will be the 2020 Games when we really start to see the benefits of these reforms and become a real powerhouse again."

The 2020 Olympic Games seem a long way away but America can be happy that at least their completely flawed Olympic boxing system has now been completely dismantled so that it has a chance of rising from the ashes.

Anyone who cares about the sport would love to see the sleeping giant reawaken at the Olympics and at least thanks to Butler and the desperately Reform Committee, USA Boxing has a shot at redemption.

Tom Degun is a reporter for insidethegames. To follow him on Twitter click here.