Zsolt Erdei
Zsolt Erdei [ ʒolt ɛrdɛ.i ] ( born May 31, 1974 in Budapest, Hungary) is a Hungarian boxer. From 2004 to 2009 he was a WBO world champion at light heavyweight and 2009 WBC world cruiserweight champion.
- 2.1 Pro Successes
Amateur career
As an amateur Erdei denied 232 fights with 212 victories. His first international success was winning the European Junior Championships in Edinburgh in 1992 in the light middleweight class, where he sat down in the final against the German representatives by Oliver boy. At the Junior World Champion t shank in the same year in Montreal, however, he has failed in the first round. From 1993, Erdei boxed at middleweight. In 1995 he took part in the Amateur World Championships in Berlin and retired there too early against the German Dirk Eigenbrodt from.
In 1996, he met at the European Championships in Vejle to a semi-final victory over the Russians Alexander Lebsiak in the finals on Sven Ottke and had to admit defeat this. In the 1996 Olympics he was eliminated in the second round. Successful for him, however, was in his hometown of Budapest discharged Amateur World Championships in 1997, where he won the title with a final victory over the Cubans Ariel Hernández. 1998 in Minsk and 2000 in Tampere he won the European Championship, but lost at the World Championship 1999 in Houston already in the first round.
In the 2000 Olympics he lost in the semifinals against the Russians Gaidarbek Gaidarbekow and thus won a bronze medal. A little later Erdei finished his amateur career and joined the professional camp.
Successes as an amateur
- European Junior Champion in 1992 in the light middleweight
- Second place in the 1996 European middleweight
- World Champion 1997 in the middleweight division
- Chemistry Cup winners 1998
- European champion in 1998 and 2000 at Middleweight
- Bronze medalist of the 2000 Olympic Games in the Middleweight
Professional career
Erdei was in Germany at Universum Box-Promotion professional and earned his first fight in December 2000. Since then he was knocked to the ground in two battles ( in June 2001 against the Ukrainians Garaschtschenko and in March 2003 against Brazilian Dos Santos), but could all win his fights (as of 2012).
On 17 January 2004 Erdei won with a points victory over twelve rounds against the Michalczewski -slayer Julio González the world title of the WBO light heavyweight Association. In the years 2004 and 2005, he defended his title with each scarce and quite controversial point victories against the Argentine Hugo Garay. On July 29, 2006 he scored a clear points victory against his stablemate Thomas Ulrich.
In the following years he defended his WBO title against relatively unknown and in independent rankings relatively low -placed opponents such as the American Danny Santiago, George Blades and DeAndrey Abron.
In 2009, Erdei moved briefly into the cruiserweight to fight there directly to the WBC World Championship against Italian Giacobbe Fragomeni. He therefore put his WBO world title in the light heavyweight division after almost six years down and enabled so that the also under contract with the universe Brähmer which would have been his next mandatory challenger, without a struggle to rise to become world champion .. Erdei submitted for this fight on November 21, 2009 Kiel actually but only relatively little weight and exceeded when weighing the light heavyweight limit by less than one kilogram. In a balanced fight, he won the WBC title against defending champion Fragomeni by a majority decision just by points (2x 115:113, 114:114 1x ). Erdei became the first Hungarian professional boxer, who won in two different weight world champion title. He held the title, however, only two months, and laid him down again in January 2010 to further fight at light heavyweight. His next two fights 20 November 2010 against Samson Onyango (unanimous points victory ) and 4 June 2011 against Byron Mitchell (win by TKO ), he played in the U.S..
On March 30, 2013, the previously unbeaten Erdei lost to Denis Grachev after a split decision.
Professional successes
- October 5, 2002: Intercontinental Champion WBO Light Heavyweight ( 4 title defenses )
- January 17, 2004: World Champion WBO Light Heavyweight ( 11 title defenses )
- November 21, 2009: World Champion of the WBC cruiserweight