István Kovács (boxer)

István Kovács
István Kovács
Data
Birth Name	István Kovács
Fight name	Koko Cobra
Weight class	Featherweight
nationality	Hungarian
birthday	17th August 1970
place of birth	Budapest
style	Left delivery
size	1.70 m
Combat Statistics
Struggles	23
Victories	22nd
Knockout victories	11
Defeats	1

István Kovács [ ˈiʃtvaːn ˈkovaːʧ ] (born August 17, 1970 in Budapest ) is a former Hungarian boxer . As a professional boxer, he was from January to June 2001 with worldwide master of the WBO in the featherweight .

Among the amateurs he was European and world champion in flyweight in 1991, as well as an Olympic bronze medalist in 1992. In bantamweight he was European and Olympic champion in 1996 and world champion in 1997.

amateur

István Kovács is one of the most successful Hungarian boxers in sports history. He was multiple Hungarian champion and won the gold medal in the light flyweight division at the European Junior Championships in Gdansk in 1988 , defeating Jan Quast among others . At the 1990 World Cup in Dublin , he won the silver flyweight medal after losing to Rico Kubat in the final . Previously, he had beaten Raúl González , among others . In this weight class he achieved numerous successes in the following years.

He won the 1991 European Championship in Gothenburg and the 1991 World Championship in Sydney , as well as the AIBA Challenge Match 1992 in Tampa . Among his defeated opponents were Daniel Petrow , Mario Loch , Tim Austin , Robbie Peden and Choi Chol-su . At the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona , this time he was eliminated in the semifinals against Choi Chol-su and won a bronze medal.

He then continued boxing bantamweight. In this weight class he won bronze at the 1993 European Championships in Bursa and the 1994 World Cup in Bangkok . He was eliminated in the semifinals against Raimkul Malachbekow and Aleksandar Christow .

At the European Championships in Vejle in 1996 , however, this time he was able to defeat Malachbekow and Christow and fight for the gold medal. He then surpassed this success at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta . With victories against Soner Karagöz , Khurshed Hasanov, George Olteanu , Vichai Rachanon and Arnaldo Mesa , he became Olympic champion and started at the 1997 World Championships in Budapest , where he defeated Falk Huste in the final and became world champion.

In total, he won 282 of 297 fights as an amateur.

professional

In 1997 he became a professional at Universum Box-Promotion in Germany and won his debut on December 13, 1997. In the course of his professional career, he played 23 fights, 19 of them in Germany, three in Hungary and one in Poland. In May 1999 he won the WBC International title with a win against the then undefeated Dramane Nabaloum (28-0) and in June 2000 the EBU European title with a win against the British Steve Robinson .

On January 27, 2001, he boxed in Munich for the WBO world featherweight title and won by technical knockout (TKO) in the twelfth round against Antonio Diaz (21-1) from the Dominican Republic. In his first title defense on June 16, 2001 in Budapest, he lost himself through TKO in the sixth round against Pablo Chacón and ended his career in April 2002.

Web links

• István Kovács in the BoxRec database