The greatest Hungarian boxers

Hungary has given the world some truly amazing boxers and if you plan to give them a run for their money, you can find some needed equipment reviewed here so you can prepare yourself to become also one of the greatest in this sport. Did your favorite boxer make the cut? Check the list below.

László Papp

Born in Budapest in March of 1926, László became one of the best known Hungarian athletes. He won the gold medal at the 1948 London, 1952 Helsinki and 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics. This was the first time a boxer won the Olympic gold in three consecutive editions. Only two others would later equal this record.

Out of the 13 fights he had at the Olympics, he won 12 and didn’t lose any round. The only time he didn’t have a complete win was when he dropped a single round in the last final he fought at the Olympics in a match against Puerto Rican José Torres in 1956. His 1948 medal was for the middleweight category and his other two for the light-middleweight.

• The Hungarian Mike Tyson: László Papp never lost a single fight

Zsolt Erdei

Born in May of 1974 in Budapest, Zsolt competed between the mid-1990s and 2014. After not winning at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, he managed to get the bronze medal in the middleweight category at the next Olympics, in Sydney.

Zsolt also managed to secure the world champion title in two weight classes with the World Boxing Organisation and Lineal championship for light-heavyweight between 2004 and 2009 with eleven defenses in a row and the World Boxing Council cruiserweight between 2009 and 2010.

This made him the first Hungarian to achieve world titles in two weight categories.

István Kovács

Born in August 1970, also in Budapest, this is another Hungarian boxer familiar to us. He won the bronze medal at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games in the flyweight category and the gold medal during the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games in the bantamweight category.

István also took home the gold in the World Amateur Championships in 1991 and 1997, plus another two gold medals at the European Amateur Championships in 1991 and 1996 and a bronze one in 1993. His 1993 wins were in the flyweight division while the rest were in the bantamweight division.

Károly Balzsay

Károly was born in 1979 in Kecskemét. He made his professional debut in September of 2004 during the Kisstadion of Budapest when he had a match against Milojko Pivljanin. At the European Championships of 2002, he took home the silver medal in the middleweight division.

In 2009 he defeated Denis Inkin and took home the World Boxing Organisation super middleweight title. In doing so, he became the third Hungarian boxer to do so, after István Kovács and Zsolt Erdei.

In 2011 he won the World Boxing Association title for super-middleweight.

He retired the next year.

Zsolt Bedák

Zsolt was born in September of 1983 in Budapest and became a boxer in the bantamweight division. He has a younger brother, Pál Bedák, who is a boxer in the flyweight division. Zsolt won the silver medal at the EU Amateur Championship in 2004 but managed to win the gold at the 2006 edition of the same competition.

He also took part in the European Amateur Championships of 2006 where we won the bronze medal. Despite his participation in the 2004 Olympic Games, he didn’t win any medals.

József Matolcsi or Mihály Kótai are other boxers who are making Hungary proud, plus the many others who are just starting out and haven’t had yet the chance of taking part in the big competitions of the world.