Background
PAPP, Laszlo was born on March 25, 1926. Son of Imre Papp and Erzsebet Burgus.
PAPP, Laszlo was born on March 25, 1926. Son of Imre Papp and Erzsebet Burgus.
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. He scored 55 first round knockouts as an amateur. Olympic results 1948 London (England) Defeated Valfrid Resko (Finland) KO 2 Defeated Jean Welter (Luxembourg) KO 1 Defeated Auguste Cavignac (Belgium) KO 1 Defeated Ivano Fontana (Italy) 3-0 Defeated John Wright (England) 3-0 1952 Helsinki (Finland) Defeated Spider Webb (United States) KO 2 Defeated Charlie Chase (Canada) KO 2 Defeated Petar Stankoff Spassoff (Bulgaria) 3-0 Defeated Eladio Oscar Herrera (Argentina) 3-0 Defeated Theunis Jacobus van Schalkwyk (South Africa) 3-0 1956 Melbourne (Australia) Defeated Alberto Saenz (Argentina) KO 3 Defeated Zbigniew Pietrzykowski (Poland) 3-0 Defeated José Torres (United States of America) 2-1 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. After Christensen, Papp defeated Randy Sandy of the United States.
In 1964, after Papp had already signed up for the world championship title bout, Hungary"s Communist leadership brought his professional career to an end by denying him an exit visa. The reason for this was that professional boxing was not permitted in Communist Hungary and the government resented Papp"s successful by-passing of the restriction by staging his fights abroad.
Papp was 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.
Married Erzsebet Kovdcs in 1950.