Andrzej Gołota

Andrew Golota
Data
Birth Name	Andrzej Gołota
Weight class	Heavyweight
nationality	Polish
birthday	5th January 1968
place of birth	Warsaw
style	Left delivery
size	1.93 m
Combat Statistics
Struggles	52
Victories	41
Knockout victories	33
Defeats	9
draw	1
No value	1
Profile in the BoxRec database

Andrzej Jan Gołota (born January 5, 1968 in Warsaw , also known as Andrew Golota in the USA ) is a former Polish heavyweight boxer .

Amateur career

Gołota started as an amateur for Legia Warsaw and won for this club two Polish youth championship titles (U17), a junior championship title (U19) and the Polish men's championships from 1987 to 1990.

At the Junior World Championship in Bucharest in 1985 , he only lost in the final against Félix Savón and thus won the silver medal. In 1986 he became Junior European Champion in Copenhagen the following year he started at the European Championships for men, but was eliminated in the quarterfinals.

In 1988 Gołota took part in the Olympic Games in Seoul for Poland and won after victories over Swilen Rusinow , Bulgaria (5-0), and Harold Obunga, Kenya (5-0), and an injury-related semi-final defeat against Baik Hyun-man , South Korea , a bronze medal.

At the European Championships in Athens in 1989 , he also finished third after a semi-final defeat against Arnold Vanderlyde , Netherlands (5-0), but was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the World Championships in the same year. In 1990 he moved to the USA.

Professional career

In 1992 he finally turned pro. Gołota lives and trains in Chicago . He showed good performances and above all very strong ability to take, but was noticed early on for his grossly unsporting behavior; in the fight against Samson Po'uha in June 1995, which he finally won by knockout in round five, he bit his opponent in the shoulder, for which, according to many experts, he should have been disqualified.

On July 11, 1996, he boxed for the first time against the more highly rated former world champion Riddick Bowe and led on points, but was disqualified in the seventh round for low blows. Subsequently, Bowe's supervisors attacked Gołota, which led to a mass brawl in the hall. He also lost the rematch on December 14th through disqualification (this time in round nine), again in the lead, again after repeated low blows.

His sporting reputation had risen significantly after the very strong performances shown, but there were more doubts about his mental stability. Because of his tendency to low blows, he earned the nicknames "Foul Pole" and "Polish Low Blow". So he got a year later a world championship fight against WBC title holder Lennox Lewis ; but here he let himself be caught off guard and was knocked out in the first round.

In the following years he succeeded in defeating the aging former world champion Tim Witherspoon . In November 1999, however, he lost a qualifying match for another world championship match against Lewis against Michael Grant . Gołota got two knockdowns in the first round, and he was also able to dominate the rest of the fight, but after he had gone down in the tenth round, he explained to the referee that he did not want to continue fighting, although he was still on points was clearly in the lead. According to legend, after he went down, he answered the referee out of confusion in Polish instead of English - colloquially, "No" means "yes" in Polish. However, in videos of the fight you can see that Golota shakes his head.

On October 20, 2000 Gołota boxed against Mike Tyson , who knocked him to the ground in the first round and won the second round; Golota had good scenes here too. When he was supposed to get up after the lap break and start the third round, he gave up and left the ring. When the Showtime reporter then asked him about it, he only said: "Boxing is a difficult sport." It later turned out that Gołota had suffered a concussion. The fight result was later canceled, however, as Tyson tested positive for marijuana .

After this fight, he first announced his retirement from professional boxing. However, three years later he returned to the ring, signed with Don King and, after two successful build-up fights, boxed against Chris Byrd for the IBF World Championship in April 2004 . The fight was controversially tied, which meant Byrd was able to defend his title.

Half a year later, Gołota challenged the WBA title holder , John Ruiz , and knocked him down twice in the second round, but could not knock him out. In the fourth round, Ruiz received a point deduction for looking up. In the end, Ruiz was declared the winner by a narrow margin, which many observers considered to be a misjudgment.

In 2005, the attempt to win the WBO crown against Lamon Brewster failed, this time clearly: The powerful Brewster surprisingly knocked Gołota within the first minute of the first round.

In October 2006, Gołota should make a comeback after a year and a half of inactivity against Kevin McBride , but this fight was canceled. Instead, he only returned to the ring on June 9, 2007 and defeated Jeremey Bates in Katowice by knockout in the second round. On October 6th, 2007 the fight against the Irish McBride took place. Gołota got into trouble in the first round, but dominated the fight in the following rounds and won by abandoning in round six. Then he managed a surprisingly clear win over twelve rounds against the Italian-American Mike Mollo , although he had to contest a large part of the fight with a left eye closed by a strong swelling.

On November 7, 2008, he played a fight against Ray Austin , which gave him his fastest knockdown ever. Already after 3 seconds Golota went to the ground after a right-left combination of the opponent, but was able to continue fighting. Later in the first round, he suffered an arm injury that forced him to give up after the first round.

On October 24, 2009, the eagerly awaited duel with his compatriot Tomasz Adamek , who had previously fought in the light heavyweight and cruiserweight division, took place in Lodz . After Golota had to go down in the first round, he finally lost the fight to a technical knockout in the fifth round.

On February 23, 2013 he returned to the ring after almost three and a half years of abstinence and boxed against Przemysław Saleta for the Polish heavyweight championship, but lost by knockout in the sixth round.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Andrzej Gołota. In: sport.onet.pl. November 15, 2012, accessed May 20, 2019 (Polish). 
2. ↑ The Most Unusual Defeat by Andrzej Gołota (Polish)

Web links

• Andrzej Gołota in the BoxRec database
• Andrzej Gołota in the BoxRec Encyclopaedia
• Portrait in Jungle World from 1999