László Papp

Papp was an Olympic gold medalist three times, at middleweight in London in 1948, then as a light middleweight in Helsinki in 1952 and in Melbourne in 1956. Papp also was the European amateur middleweight champion as a middleweight in 1949 at Oslo and at light middleweight at Milan 1951. He scored 55 first-round knockouts as an amateur, his record was 301-12-6.

No amateur has ever had a record like Papp's. He was only 5'5" with a 64" reach. He also beat many to whom he had lost,  He fought in those days with no headgear etc, like professionals. Because of his great height and reach deficiencies, he HAS to have been the greatest amateur of all time.
Most important, when the going got tough, he had a visible extra gear, and another on top of that. He always attacked.

Papp, despite having hand trouble, turned professional in 1957 and immediately began rising in the Middleweight ranks. However, Hungary was a Communist country at the time and professional boxing was not permitted. Papp had to travel to Vienna, in Austria, for training and for his fights. In spite of this disadvantage, he beat several top-ranking contenders for the European Middleweight title, including veteran Tiger Jones, French champion Hippolyte Annex and Chris Christensen. After Christensen, Papp defeated Randy Sandy of the United States. In 1964, after Papp had already signed up for the world championship title bout against Joey Giardello, Hungary's Communist leadership brought his professional career to an end by denying him an exit visa.

Papp is one of the few boxers in history to ever retire undefeated in the ring. His fighting record was 27 wins, 2 draws, and no losses. 15 of his wins were by way of knockout.

László Papp died in Budapest in 2003. [1]

Papp was inducted into the International Boxing Hall Of Fame in 2001. In 1989 WBC President José Sulaimán gave Papp an award for 'Best amateur and professional boxer of all time' and granted him honorary champion status of the World Boxing Council.

Budapest's Papp László Sportaréna, a multipurpose building best known as a concert venue and the home ice of the Hungarian national hockey team, is named in his honour.

• List of Hungarians

• His biography at Hungary.hu
• Boxing record for László Papp from BoxRec (registration required)
• International Boxing Hall of Fame Bio
• Amateur Record at the Wayback Machine (archived October 27, 2009)

• Official homepage