Boxing and the Iron Curtain
By Eric Armit
PhilBoxing.com
Thu, 28 Jan 2021
Three time Olympic gold medal winner László Papp of Hungary.
Back in March 1946 Winston Churchill made his famous speech in Fulton, Missouri in which he coined the phrase Iron Curtain to describe the hegemony of Eastern Europe by Soviet Russia. One outcome from this Iron Curtain was the total ban on professional sports in all Eastern European countries. Instead sport was used as a tool of political propaganda. The message was a simple one for simple minds it was that a system that produces successful athletes must be successful system.
Initially this Iron Curtain did not have a big effect on professional boxing as, with the exception of the part that became East Germany, the countries of Eastern Europe such as Poland, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Romania had never been boxing powerhouses.
The only Russian-born world champion prior to the Second World War was world flyweight champion Newsboy Brown (David Montrose) who moved to America when he was just three months old. It was the same with two Ukrainians as featherweight champion Louis “Kid” Kaplan, although born in Kiev, moved to America with his family when he was five years old and Benny Bass, a champion at featherweight and junior lightweight, who emigrated to American whilst quite young.
The effect on amateur boxing took a little while to manifest itself in a shattered Europe. Countries in the East would eventually put a lot of money and effort into producing successful athletes but that could not be achieved overnight.
Before 1939 Eastern European countries had only put a toe in the Olympic boxing pool. Poland was the first to test the water participating in the 1924 Olympics with five boxers, Czechoslovakian Jan Hermanek was the first East European to win a boxing medal taking silver at middleweight in 1928 and Hungarian Istvan Enekes became the first gold medalist from the East as flyweight champion in Los Angeles in 1932 with Imre Harangi copying his fellow-country man with a gold medal in the 1936 Games.
There were no Games in 1940 or 1944 but in the first post war Olympics in London in 1948 Hungarians Laszlo Papp and Tibor Csik and Czechoslovakian Julius Torma won gold medals and Pole Aleksy Antkiewicz was placed third as the losing semi-finalist fought for third place.
By the 1952 Olympics the efforts being poured into boxing began to pay dividends. The USSR (the team title changed a couple of times but for simplicity I will use the USSR as the team title) had recognised the propaganda plus to come from success at sport and other Eastern European countries were also investing heavily. Again Hungary in the form of the amazing Laszlo Papp, Poland and Czechoslovakia won gold and for the first time the USSR team collected two silver medals and four bronze.
In 1956 The USSR and other Eastern European countries took thirteen medals. Three gold, a silver and two bronze went to the USSR with the German Democratic Republic (GDR-East Germany) weighing with a gold in their first appearance at the Olympics, Romania won their first gold medal and also a silver and a bronze. Poland collected two bronze and the great Laszlo Papp won gold for Hungary. His third gold medal in consecutive Olympics.
In 1960 a strong host team in Rome saw Italians Francesco Musso, Nino Benvenuti and Franco de Piccoli reaching the gold standard. The USA team also collected three golds with a young Cassius Clay one of the winners. That restricted the Eastern bloc to four gold but between them the USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania and the GDR won five silver and eight bronze. It was four gold, five silver and seven bronze medals in 1964 which also saw the first participation of Cuba at the Olympics boxing.
The word amateur still had a meaning in most countries but the boxers from the USSR, Eastern Europe and now Cuba were full-time financially supported athletes-professional in all but name and with Cuba a growing power it was getting tough for non-communist countries to gather medals.
Joe Frazier had won gold in 1964 and George Foreman and Chris Finnegan stood out as gold medal winners in 1968 but in Munich in 1972 the USSR, Eastern European countries and Cuba between them lifted eleven of the twelve gold medals.
The USA team at Montreal in 1976 was the strongest the USA had produced in modern times with Leo Randolph, Howard Davis, Ray Leonard, and Mike and Leon Spinks winning gold, Charles Mooney silver and John Tate bronze. At that time the heaviest division was 81kg+ with Leon Spinks winning the 81kg division and Tate’s bronze medal coming at +81kg as he was knocked out inside a round by Teofilio Stevenson.
In the early 1980’s politics intervene with the USA not competing in Moscow in 1980 and the Soviets not competing in Los Angeles in 1984. If the 1976 had been the strongest USA team then the 1984 team in Los Angeles matched it with Paul Gonzales, Meldrick Taylor, Pernell Whittaker, Steve McCrory, Mark Breland, Jerry Page, Frank Tete, Henry Tillman and Tyrell Briggs landing nine gold medals for the USA with Virgil Hill a silver and Evander Holyfield on his way to gold until disqualified in his semi-final.
In 1988 the gold tally for the USSR and Eastern bloc countries at the Olympics was faltering and there was a massive change in 1989 and early 1990’s with the break-up of the USSR led by the Baltic States which resulting in many newly independent countries being formed. Up until then the USSR team was drawn from many different part of the Union for example Lithuanian Ricardas Tamulis and Danas Pozniak and Kazaks Viktor Demanenko and Sergey Konakbayev were amongst many non-Russians to win Olympic and European medals under the USSR banner.
The last appearance of a USSR team at Olympic boxing came in 1992 but it was a much weakened team as the independent Republics, although contributing to the “Unified Team” as it was labelled, were also focusing on building their own boxing team and the Unified Team went away with just one silver and one bronze in 1992.
Countries such as Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and particularly Poland etc. historically had their own structures in place and continued to be strong as there was no professional outlet for their fighters but that would change over time as well.
By the 1996 Olympic Games the Iron Curtain and the USSR as a single entity had disappeared and Wladimir Klitschko and Vasili Jirov won gold medals for Ukraine and Kazakhstan respectively.
Now the former member States of the USSR were having and have had an increasing impact on professional boxing. Wlad and Vitali Klitschko, Artur Beterbiev, Mairis Breidis, Dmitry Bivol, Vasyl Lomachenko, Denys Berinchyk and so many others have been able to grace the professional ranks since the Iron Curtain was ripped down.
It is impossible to give any meaningful measure of the impact of the ban on professional boxing that was imposed by the communist regimes of Eastern Europe. The only major exception to the ban was the great Laszlo Papp. A three-time Olympic gold medal winner, who beat future world light heavyweight champion Jose Torres in the 1956 final, and twice took gold at the European Championships. Papp was allowed to box professionally by the Hungarian government in 1957. He was 31 then and went on to win the European title and defend it six times. He fought in Germany, Italy, Austria, France, Yugoslavia and Spain in building a 27-0-2 record. He was in line for a shot at world champion Joey Giardello but he would have had to travel to American to fight for the title and the communist government would not allow that and withdrew his permit to travel and box.
Boxers who competed at the Olympic Games for other teams during the time the Eastern European were banned from turning professional included Buno Arcari, Trevor Berbick, Markus Beyer, Markus Bott, Salvatore Burruni, Cornelius Boza-Edwards, Johnny Bredahl, Johnny Caldwell, Prudencio Cardona, Pat Clinton, Miguel Angel Cuello, Nelson Dieppe, Jeff Fenech, Vernon Forrest, Alfonso Frazer, Victor Galindez, Artur Grigorian, Wilfredo Gomez, Miguel Angel Gonzalez, Montell Griffin, David Griman, Maurice Hope, Paul Ingle, Eder Jofre, Royal Kobayashi, Alfred Kotey, Andrew Lewis, Charlie Magri, Raul Marquez, Mike McCallum, Wayne McCullough, Barry McGuigan, Elenocio Mercedes, Davey Moore, Vincenzo Nardiello, Danell Nicholson, Sven Ottke, Robert Peden, Michele Piccirillo, Payao Pooltarat, Ike Quartey, Gilberto Roman, Vicente Saldivar, Chatchai Sasakul, John Stracey, Franco Udella, Miguel Velasquez and Daniel Zaragoza.
A long, long list of world champions who all failed to win a medal when competing at the Olympic Games in that period from 1948 to 1992 and when you add names such as Maurizio Stecca, Christophe Tiozzo, Gianfranco Rosi, John Conteh and Robin Reid as just a few of the many who failed to medal at the European Championships but went on to win world titles you get an idea of how hard it could be to win any medal at the Olympics or the European Championships in that period.
In a very short time after professional boxing was allowed fighters such as Yuri Arbachakov (1992), Orzubek Nazarov (1993), Henry Maske (1993),Konstantin Tszyu (1995), Artur Grigorian (1996), Ahmed Kotiev (1998), Anatoli Alexandrov (1998),Vassily Jirov and Vitaliy Klitschko (1999) had all won world titles. By 2010 Armenia, Belarus, Hungary, Latvia and Poland had all produced world champions and today you could be excused for thinking there are more Kazakh fighters in gyms in California than there are back in Kazakhstan.
Looking further back Papp showed how good some of these Eastern European and USSR fighters were. Yes they had the “advantage” of not being “tempted” to turn professional. They had a system that identified potential early, academies to help them develop that potential and the support of their respective countries making them professionals in all but name.
However it is not stretching a point to say that in addition to Papp top Eastern European boxers such as Boris Lagutin (bronze medal 1960 Olympics, gold medals at the 1964 and 1968 Olympics and gold medals at the 1961 and 1963 European Championships.), Jerzy Kulej (gold at 1964 and 1968 Olympics) Dan Pozniakas (gold 1958 Olympics, gold at the European championships in 1965,1967 and 1969) Rikardas Tamulis (silver 1964 Olympics, gold at the 1961,1963 and 1965 European Championships), Serik Konakbaev (silver at the 1980 Olympics, gold at the 1979 and 1981 European Championships and silver at the World Championships. Oleg Grigoryev (gold at the 1960 Olympics and at the 1957, 1963 and 1965 European Championships) could all have made important contributions to boxing in Europe and the world.
I feel sorry for Pole Zbigniew Pietrzykowski. He won a silver medal and two bronze medals at the Olympic Games and won four gold medals at the European championships but will forever be just a footnote in boxing history as the man a young Cassius Clay beat in the in the final of the 1960 Games.
As with Pietrzykowski and the others above we can only speculate but never know whether any of them might have been an early years Vasyl Lomachenko an Oleg Usyk or an Artur Beterbiev but were lost to professional boxing behind the Iron Curtain.
About the Author
Born in Scotland, Eric Armit started working with Boxing News magazine in the UK in the late 1960’s initially doing records for their Boxing News Annual and compiling World, European and Commonwealth ratings for the magazine. He wrote his first feature article for Boxing News in 1973 and wrote a “World Scene” weekly column for the magazine from the late 1970’s until 2004. Armit wrote a monthly column for Boxing Digest in the USA and contributed pieces to magazines in Mexico, Italy, Australia, Spain, Argentina and other countries. Armit now writes a Weekly Report covering every major fight around the world and a bi-weekly Snips & Snipes column plus occasional general interest articles with these being taken up by boxing sites around the world. He was a member of the inaugural WBC Ratings Committee and a technical advisor to the EBU Ratings Committee and was consulted by John McCain’s research team when they were drafting the Ali Act. He is a Director and former Chairman of the Commonwealth Boxing Council. Armit has been nominated to the International Boxing Hall of Fame the past two years (2019 and 2020) to which he said, “Being on the list is an unbelievably huge honour.”
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Eric Armit.
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