Greatest amateur fighter of all time..

**THE PHILOSOPHER** · 08-13-2012 05:58 PM

Who is it?

Lazslo Papp for me. He won three Olympic Gold Medals (first man to ever do so in amateur boxing) at three consecutive Olympic Games: London 1948, Helsinki 1952, Melbourne 1956. He also won the European Amateur Championships in 1949 and 1951.

He had 312 amateur contests, he lost only five and scored 55 first round KO's. Among the men he beat was Jose Torres who became world light heavyweight champion as a professional and the amateur who gave a young Ali/Clay trouble zibignew Pietrzyk...

Remember too that Papp fought in the days before head guards, computer scoring and massive gloves, the 312 contests he had were in the days where amateur boxing was not as far removed from professional boxing.

In my opinion no other amateur outshines Papp

Teofilio stevenson himself said that he would need 2 lifetimes to achieve all Papp achieved!

Teofilo, Felix Savon, Boris Lagutin, Sergei Kulej and Oleg Saitov, even though technically, specially in the cases of Saitov and Lagutin might were superior to Mr. Papp, they simly did not achieve the "undefeated" status of Papp in the big international competitions.

Most of all, Papp was known as a quiet, honest man who never bragged about himself but did his talking inside the ring. And in there, his fists told a story that will never be forgotten from the minds of the boxing fans.

**Master** · 08-13-2012 09:36 PM

Teofilio Stevenson in my book

**IamInuit** · 08-13-2012 11:37 PM

Papp probably edges out Savon and Stevenson but the three are actually pretty interchangeable. The much forgotten Henry Mallin of Great Britain is also in the discussion and Donald Curry deserves a mention as he went 400/4 as an amateur and if not for politics would have most likely got Olympic gold.

**Scrap** · 08-13-2012 11:59 PM

Met Papp in 88, in Budapest. One lovely Man, Talked mostly through an interpreter must have been for an Hour, enjoyed. Dont know of anybody Better. Actually in the discussion I asked Him why there was no good Sportsmen, coming through Hungary now. when you think of the 50s, with Boxing and soccer He said the Ruskis [ Russians] had taken the Heart out of the Country.

**Andre** · 08-14-2012 12:59 AM

Originally Posted by Scrap

Met Papp in 88, in Budapest. One lovely Man, Talked mostly through an interpreter must have been for an Hour, enjoyed. Dont know of anybody Better. Actually in the discussion I asked Him why there was no good Sportsmen, coming through Hungary now. when you think of the 50s, with Boxing and soccer He said the Ruskis [ Russians] had taken the Heart out of the Country.

Took a while but this guy looked good till he lost the Wbo title through a upset ko,he never was the same after that.

Hungarian
István Kovács, amateur 282 wins, 14 losses and one draw.

Pro 22. 1. 0