Gogi Knežević

Gogi Knežević
Data
Birth Name	Gojko Knežević
Fight name	Lionheart
Weight class	medium weight
nationality	Austrian
birthday	August 21, 1979
place of birth	Vienna
style	Left delivery
size	1.79 m
Combat Statistics
Struggles	45
Victories	34
Knockout victories	15th
Defeats	10
draw	1

Gojko "Gogi" Knežević (born August 21, 1979 in Vienna ) is an Austrian professional middleweight boxer.

His greatest successes were winning the Austrian championship title for amateurs in 2004, as well as the international Serbian and Austrian championship titles for professionals. He is also a former world champion of the Professional Box Union (PBU) and Global Boxing Union (GBU), as well as a former intercontinental champion of the World Boxing Federation (WBF).

By winning the CISBB European title in June 2016, he became the first Austrian title holder of the World Boxing Council (WBC), one of the four most influential world associations in boxing.

Beginnings

Knežević, whose parents are from Serbia , started boxing at the age of six and trained until he was ten. He then switched to basketball , where he was accepted into the national team at the age of 17 and received a professional contract with the Oberwart Gunners . From the age of 20, however, he devoted himself to boxing again and played his first amateur fights in Serbia, before he was trained in Austria by former European champion Edip Sekowitsch and in 2004 he became Austrian welterweight champion.

Professional career

At the age of 24 he became a professional, won his first four fights and finally boxed on June 25, 2006 against Gotthard Hinteregger for the Austrian light middleweight championship. Although Knežević was leading on points in the first three rounds, he forgot to wear his mouthguard in the fourth round, and after a straight line from Hinteregger, one of his incisors bored his lower jaw at an angle and he could no longer use his mouthguard. Referee Ernst Salzgeber then ended the fight, Hinteregger was declared the winner by a technical knockout.

After six wins in a row, however, Knežević was on November 30, 2007 with a points win against Ronny Mittag, International Serbian Light Middleweight Champion . On October 19, 2008 he was with a points victory against János Petrovics, also still international Austrian champion in the light middleweight division.

On April 4, 2009 he boxed against the Frenchman Cédric Vitu for the vacant WBC - Mediterranean championship ( Mediterranean ) in light middleweight, but lost by knockout in round 11.

On June 26, 2010, he boxed against the German-Russian Viktor Dick for the intercontinental championship title of the WBF in order to become the mandatory challenger of the reigning WBF world champion Kreshnik Qato from Albania with a victory. Knežević suffered a swelling over his left cheekbone during the middle of the twelve rounds. Up to the fourth round the fight was relatively even according to the judges' notes, but the resistance of Knežević slackened in the further rounds, and he was deducted a point in the eighth round for repeatedly spitting out the face mask. In the further course of the physically stronger Dick scored and the referee ended the fight after two more rounds in the tenth round after the resistance of Knežević had decreased significantly. Dick won through technical knockout. Knežević's real opponent should have been Omar Siala, who was only in the top 30 in Germany, but was temporarily replaced by Viktor Dick due to an injury, who was one of the top 10 German middleweights at the time and had defeated Siala in his last fight.

On April 30, 2011 he boxed against János Varga in the Budocenter Vienna for the PBU world title and won by technical knockout in round 7. On November 18, 2011 he boxed again for the WBC Mediterranean title , but lost through TKO in round 8 against Gökalp Özekler .

On June 16, 2012, in Güssing , he also won the GBU World Cup with a TKO victory in the twelfth round against the American Bruce Rumbolz . On March 22, 2013, he was supposed to box for the IBF International Light Middleweight Championship in the Universal Hall in Berlin . His intended, undefeated German opponent Besar Nimani had to cancel the fight due to a training injury.

On May 4, 2013, he secured himself by unanimous victory over the Hungarian József Matolcsi, the Intercontinental Championship of the WBF in the middleweight division. He defended this for the first time on December 7, 2013 against the Georgian Robison Omsarashvili. In May 2014 he boxed against Nick Klappert in Fürstenwalde for the IBO intercontinental championship in the light middleweight division, but lost by knockout in the third round.

On June 27, 2015, he boxed in Ajax, Canada for the intercontinental championship of the WBA in light middleweight. However, he suffered a premature loss to the undefeated Canadian Brandon Cook.

On June 4, 2016, he won the WBC CISBB middleweight title by unanimously winning points against Vladimír Říha. He is the first Austrian to win a title from this world association.

On March 24, 2017, he boxed in the Scottish capital Edinburgh for the WBO European Middleweight Championship and lost to Conrad Cummings in the third round by TKO. On October 20, 2018, he lost through TKO in the first round against the amateur world champion and Olympic third party Mohammed Rabii .

On April 13, 2019, he lost to Marcos Nader in the eighth round by TKO . The fight was about the IBF International Middleweight Championship.

List of professional fights

year	Day	place	opponent	Result for Knežević
2019	October 6th	Hamburg, Germany	Ferenc Hafner	Point defeat (6 rounds)
	April 13th	Vienna, Austria	Marcos Nader	TKO defeat 8th round (10 rounds)
	February 17th	Hamburg , Germany	Zsolt Friesz	Knockout win 2nd round (6 rounds)
2018	the 20th of October	Marseille , France	Mohammed Rabii	TKO defeat 1st round (8 rounds)
	March 16	Vienna, Austria	Achilles Szabó	Points win (8 rounds)
2017	15th October	Salzburg , Austria	Krisztián Santa	TKO win 3rd round (8 rounds)
	March 24th	Edinburgh , Scotland	Conrad Cummings	TKO defeat 3rd round (12 rounds)
2016	June 4th	Vienna, Austria	Vladimír Říha	Points win (10 rounds)
	March 12th	Vienna, Austria	József Kormány	Points win (8 rounds)
2015	October 10th	Vienna, Austria	Gábor Farkas	Knockout win 1st round (8 rounds)
	June 27th	Ajax , Canada	Brandon Cook	TKO defeat 4th round (12 rounds)
	February 28	Vienna, Austria	Janos Varga	Points win (8 rounds)
	February 7th	Vienna, Austria	Ivan Duvancic	Points win (6 rounds)
2014	10th of May	Fürstenwalde , Germany	Nick rattles	Knockout loss 3rd round (12 rounds)
2013	December 7th	Vienna, Austria	Robison Omsarashvili	Disqualification win 9th round (12 rounds)
	May 4th	Schwechat , Austria	József Matolcsi	Points win (12 rounds)
	January 27th	Vienna, Austria	Ivan Godor	Points win (6 rounds)
2012	25. November	Vienna, Austria	Attila Orsos	Knockout win 1st round (6 rounds)
	June 16	Güssing , Austria	Bruce Rumbolz	TKO win 12th round (12 rounds)
2011	November 18	Cuxhaven , Germany	Gökalp Özekler	TKO defeat 8th round (12 rounds)
	October 22nd	Gallneukirchen , Austria	László Haaz	Points win (6 rounds)
	April, 30th	Vienna, Austria	Janos Varga	TKO win 7th round (12 rounds)
2010	25th of September	Vienna, Austria	Krisztian Erdei	TKO victory 1st round (8 rounds)
	June 26th	Vienna, Austria	Viktor Dick	TKO defeat 10th round (12 rounds)
	January 30th	Vienna, Austria	Alexander Riegel	Points win (6 rounds)
2009	December 26th	Vienna, Austria	Marian Gabris	TKO win 2nd round (6 rounds)
	October 3	Vienna, Austria	Joseph Sovijus	TKO win 4th round (6 rounds)
	20th June	Belgrade, Serbia	Zoltán Borovics	TKO victory 1st round (6 rounds)
	4. April	Rosny-sur-Seine , France	Cédric Vitu	Knockout defeat 11th round (12 rounds)
	7th March	Vienna, Austria	Gabor Balogh	TKO win 2nd round (6 rounds)
2008	October 19th	Vösendorf , Austria	János Petrovics	Points win (10 rounds)
	April 19th	Belgrade, Serbia	Zoran Cvek	Draw (6 rounds)
	February 22	Vienna, Austria	Renato Gogošević	Points win (6 rounds)
2007	30th of November	Loznica , Serbia	Ronny noon	Points win (10 rounds)
	5th October	Belgrade, Serbia	Ivan Duvancic	Knockout win 2nd round (6 rounds)
	the 9th of September	Nova Pazova , Serbia	Thomas Hengstberger	Points win (6 rounds)
	March 18th	Vienna, Austria	Marian Tomcany	TKO win 2nd round (6 rounds)
2006	November 18	Steyr, Austria	Kornel Csesznyak	Points win (4 rounds)
	28th of October	Vienna, Austria	Mario Stojka	TKO victory 3rd round (6 rounds)
	July 28th	Vienna, Austria	Mihai Macovei	Points win (6 rounds)
	25th June	Velden am Wörther See , Austria	Gotthard Hinteregger	TKO defeat 4th round (10 rounds)
	May 6th	Kufstein , Austria	Csaba Bajczik	TKO win 4th round (6 rounds)
2005	November 26th	Steyr , Austria	Jasmin Alimanović	Points win (4 rounds)
	5th October	Belgrade , Serbia	Stefan Dimitrov	Points win (4 rounds)
2004	8th of May	Vienna , Austria	Gheorghe Marian	Points win (6 rounds)

Others

Since the murder of his trainer Edip Sekowitsch in August 2008, he has been trained by Johann Senfter . From October 2009 to the beginning of 2010 he was sponsored by FPÖ party leader Heinz-Christian Strache and made an appearance in the music video for Perestroika by Kid Pex . He has been married since August 2012.

In 2015 he opened a boxing club in Vienna.

Web links

• Profile in the BoxRec database
• official homepage
• Profile at Fight-Production
• Boxing Austria
• Sport in Vienna
• World Boxing Federation report
• Strache sponsors boxing athlete