László Papp

László Papp [ la ː slo ː pɒp ] ( born March 25, 1926 in Budapest, † October 16, 2003 ) was a Hungarian boxer.

Career

Amateur

Papp was the first boxer who won gold medals in three consecutive Olympic Games (1948 in the middleweight division, 1952 and 1956 in the light middleweight ). He is considered one of the most successful amateur boxer of all time. His struggle balance sheet included 312 fights, of which 301 wins, six draws and five defeats. In addition, he was European champion in 1949 and 1951.

During his amateur career he hit Ivano Fontana, Stig Sjölin, Jens Andersen, Theunis van Schalkwyk, Zbigniew Pietrzykowski and José Torres.

Professional

In 1957, Papp became the first official professional boxer of a socialist country, but with an Austrian license; therefore, he traveled regularly for training and competitions to Vienna. Despite these limitations, he won the 1962 European champion middleweight title, which he then defended six times. After the Hungarian authorities had refused to give consent for a world title fight, Papp came back in late 1964 as the reigning European champion and finished his professional career. Overall Papp remained in all his 29 fights as a professional unbeaten and left 27 times as the winner of the ring. Three times was the Hungarian case against the German Peter Müller. In one of the two draw Papp had to survive with a broken hand seven rounds.

Coach

1969-1992 trained Papp, the Hungarian national team; 1972 Halbfliegengewichtler György Gedó won Olympic gold under his leadership. After his retirement as coach Papp built in Budapest at a boxing school.

László Papp died on 16 October 2003 in Budapest.

Awards

  • Fair Play Award of the UNESCO
  • Honor world champion of WBC Profiboxverbands (1989 )
  • Commander of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary ( 1996)
  • International Boxing Hall of Fame (2001)

Success as an amateur boxer

Success as a professional boxer

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