Zsolt Erdei (born 31 May 1974) is a Hungarian former professional boxer who competed from 2000 to 2014. He held world championships in two weight classes, including the

WBO The World Boxing Organization (WBO) is an organization which sanctions professional boxing bouts. It is recognized by the International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF) as one of the four major world championship groups, alongside the World Boxing ...

and lineal

light-heavyweight Light heavyweight, also referred to as junior cruiserweight or light cruiserweight, is a weight class in combat sports. Boxing Professional In professional boxing, the division is above and up to , falling between super middleweight and cruiserw ...

titles from 2004 to 2009 (making eleven consecutive defences against ten different opponents), and the

WBC WBC may stand for: Business *Westinghouse Broadcasting Company, a former large India broadcaster now folded into CBS *Westpac (New Delhi Exchange code: WBC), a multinational Financial services company *Wholesale Broadband Connect, BT Wholesale's ...

cruiserweight title from 2009 to 2010. Erdei is the first boxer from Hungary to win world titles in two weight divisions. As an

amateur An amateur () is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, autodidacticism, self-taught, user-generated, do it yourself, DI ...

, he won a bronze medal in the

middleweight Middleweight is a weight class in combat sports. Boxing Professional In professional boxing, the middleweight division is contested above and up to . Early boxing history is less than exact, but the middleweight designation seems to have be ...

division at the

2000 Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from 1 ...

. He also competed at the

1996 Summer Olympics The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, ...

Amateur career

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

World Champion in Budapest *

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

and

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

European Champion * Representing Hungary, won the Middleweight bronze medal at the 2000

Olympics The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...

in Sydney * Amateur Record: 212-20 *1996 Olympic Results **Defeated

Juan Pablo López ''Juan'' is a given name, the Spanish and Manx versions of ''John''. It is very common in Spain and in other Spanish-speaking communities around the world and in the Philippines, and also (pronounced differently) in the Isle of Man. In Spanish, t ...

(Mexico) RSC 3 (2:20) **Lost to Malik Beyleroğlu (Turkey) 8-9 *2000 Olympic Results - Boxed as a Middleweight (75 kg) **Defeated Vladislav Vizilter (Kyrgyzstan) RSC-3 **Defeated

Alexander Zubrikhin Oleksandr Zubrihin (born October 28, 1974) is a boxer from Ukraine who won the bronze medal in the Men's Middleweight (– 75 kg) division at the 2000 European Amateur Boxing Championships in Tampere, Finland. Zubrihin represented his n ...

(Ukraine) 14-9 **Lost to

Gaydarbek Gaydarbekov Gaydarbek Abdulovich Gaydarbekov (russian: Гайдарбек Абдулович Гайдарбеков) (born October 6, 1976 in Kaspiysk, USSR) is a Russian boxer of Avar heritage, who has won two Olympic medals in Middleweight including the ...

(Russia) 16-24

Professional career

Erdei turned professional in December 2000 and won the WBO Inter-Continental light heavyweight title in October 2002. On January 17, 2004, Erdei won the Lineal and

light heavyweight titles from

Julio César González Julio César González Ibarra (July 30, 1976 – March 10, 2012) was a Mexican professional boxer who competed from 1997 to 2011, and held the WBO and lineal light heavyweight titles from 2003 to 2004. Amateur career Gonzalez was a member o ...

by unanimous decision, and successfully defended the titles eleven times. On November 13, 2009, he relinquished his WBO light heavyweight title and moved up to cruiserweight. Erdei defeated

Giacobbe Fragomeni Giacobbe Fragomeni (born 13 August 1969) is an Italian professional boxer. He held the WBC cruiserweight title from 2008 to 2009, and the European Union cruiserweight title from 2007 to 2008. As an amateur he won a bronze medal at the 1997 Worl ...

on November 21, 2009, for the

cruiserweight title. Most of Erdei's matches during his professional career were promoted by Universum boxing. After announcing his retirement in January 2010 and thus relinquishing his claim as Lineal light heavyweight champion, Erdei decided to have more matches in 2011 in the USA and fought Samson Onyango and Byron Mitchell as his first opponents there. The Mitchell fight which was set up by Lou DiBella ended with Erdei knocking Mitchell out in the 6th round (TKO).Erdei kiütéssel győzött, mehet a bajnoki övért
Népszabadság Retrieved 2011-06-05. Erdei finally returned on March 30, 2013 and lost a 10 round split decision to Denis Grachev.

Professional boxing record

References

External links

* (archived) *
Zsolt Erdei profile
at Cyber Boxing Zone {{DEFAULTSORT:Erdei, Zsolt 1974 births Living people World Boxing Organization champions Boxers at the 1996 Summer Olympics Boxers at the 2000 Summer Olympics Olympic bronze medalists for Hungary Olympic boxers of Hungary Boxers from Budapest Olympic medalists in boxing AIBA World Boxing Championships medalists Hungarian male boxers Medalists at the 2000 Summer Olympics World light-heavyweight boxing champions World cruiserweight boxing champions I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! winners