Dumb boxing question re: records

Okay, so every boxer I'm looking at on fightnews.com has a ridiculously good record.

Tyson Marquez is 20-0 with 16 KOs.
Klitschko is 51-3 with 45 KOs.
Tony Thompson is 31-2 with 19 KOs.
Johnathon Banks is 20-0 with 14 KOs.
Vincenzo Rossitto is 30-6-2 with 22 KOs.

The list goes on and on. So my question is, how do these guys beef up their records? Are there human punching bags whose records are like 0-57? Do those records only include professional fights, or is it amateur too? Because if it's amateur, I guess they could get a homeless guy in the ring and just pound on them to get their record nice.

Ok, so please school me on this because it's something I wondered about as a kid and never learned.

 

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1608/is_n11_v14/ai_21240305

 

http://www.boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=4741&cat=boxer

Early in many young fighters' careers, usually fighters who had successful amateur careers or are are popular local fighters who sell a lot of tickets, opponents are brought in to build up a fighter's record. These are usually guys of lesser ability than the prospect or as is the case with somebody like Reggie Strickland, a skilled professional who understands that his role is to do just enough to lose.
The records including only professional fights.

 

Sports Illustrated did an outstanding article about 20 years ago about boxing 'opponents'. They're almost like the pro wrestling 'jobbers', who know they are supposed to lose.

One guy interviewed in SI's article was Bruce 'The Mouse' Strauss. He actually walked around in the ring before the fight to see where there were any soft spots so that he would know where to fall.

 

Somebody didn't read my link, but that's fine. It was only for decoration, I suppose. I'll just go over here and sulk. No one will notice.

 

Donnie Penelton, a cousin of Gerald McClellan, was another guy in the Reggie Strickland mould.

http://www.boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=004788&cat=boxer

As is Pete Buckley over in the UK…

http://www.boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=003372&cat=boxer

 

Don't feel bad. It was too late in the night for me to open up links.

 

Back in the 80s, Toronto fight cards were always filled with dive artists from Ohio (I mean, these guys showed up with everything but the fins and snorkel) to be fed to some local hero. (One guy was advertised on the fight poster as having "sparred with Larry Holmes".) And they didn't disappoint either, looking for a soft spot to land as soon as they could.

All those wins look good on a record but not so good when some kid moves up the ranks, like Shawn O'Sullivan did, and almost gets killed by Simon Brown, the first real pro he'd ever faced.

But once in a while the situation Moddy describes shows up and you see a guy clearly better than his record who has taken too many fights on short notice or has had managerial problems and he can ruin the night of many a prospect.

 

In the early part of the decade, several boxers from Ashtabula, Ohio served as "opponents" As best I could tell they were all residents of a homeless shelter who had no training in the sport whatsoever.
Do a Google search for the name "James Holley"
He was the guy who managed them. He also fought many times himself and was suspended for making fake federal ID cards.

 

That's what happened with Mark Gastineau's boxing career. He ran up about a 20-fight win streak, then on ESPN, fought a guy (and I forget his name) who WAS pretty good. Gastineau got clobbered.

 

I used to tape the fights all the time in those days and I remember that one well (probably still have it in the archives here somewhere). I remember the look on Gastineau's face when the guy started punching back. Clearly this wasn't how it was supposed to go.

I'd seen talented fighters who didn't know how to react when hurt (think of Hearns in his first fight with Leonard), that must have been a pretty desperate situation for a poser like Gastineau.