On March 23, 2013, the Amateur International Boxing Association instituted significant changes to the format. The World Series of Boxing, AIBA's pro team league which started in 2010, already enabled team members to retain 2012 Olympic eligibility. The newer AIBA Pro Boxing Tournament, consisting of pros who sign 5 year contracts with AIBA and compete on pro cards leading up to the tournament, also provides a pathway for new pros to retain their Olympic eligibility and retain ties with national committees. The elimination of headgear and the adoption of the "10-point must" scoring system further clears the delineation between amateur and pro format. Similar to 2012 format, men competed in the following ten events: As for the women, they were eligible to compete in the following three events:
Qualifying criteria
Each National Olympic Committee was permitted to enter up to one athlete in each event. Six places were reserved for the host nation Brazil, while the remaining places were allocated to the Tripartite Invitation Commission. Because non-AIBA professional boxers were eligible to compete for the first time at the Olympics, a total of thirty-seven places had been reserved and thereby distributed to pros; twenty were qualified through the AIBA Pro Boxing Series with two for each event, while seventeen through the World Series of Boxing. Each continent had a quota of places to be filled through the two amateur and semi-pro league tournaments. Qualification events were:
2014–2015 World Series of Boxing – The two top ranked boxers at the end of the 2014–2015 season in each weight category.
2014–2015 AIBA Pro Boxing World Ranking – The champion and world-ranked top challenger in each weight category of the APB World Ranking at the end of the first cycle in September 2015.
of originally won the silver medal, but was disqualified after he tested positive for Tuaminoheptane.
Women
Medal summary
Medal table
Host nation
Judging
Controversy surrounded the new judging system; the new system counts has five judges who judge each bout, and a computer randomly selects three whose scores are counted. Traditionally, judges would use a computer scoring system to count each punch landed, but in 2016 the winner of each round was awarded 10 points and the loser a lower number, based on criteria which includes the quality of punches landed, effective aggression and tactical superiority. Two results in particular attracted controversy : the defeat of Kazakh Vasily Levit by Russian Evgeny Tishchenko in the men's heavyweight gold-medal fight, drawing jeers from the audience, and the defeat of Irish boxer Michael Conlan by Russian Vladimir Nikitin in the men's bantamweight quarter-final, after which Conlan accused AIBA and the Russian team of cheating, even tweeting to Russian President Vladimir Putin "Hey Vlad, How much did they charge you bro??" The AIBA would remove an unspecified number of judges and referees following the controversy, stating that they "determined that less than a handful of the decisions were not at the level expected" and "that the concerned referees and judges will no longer officiate at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games"; however, the original decision would still remain.
