[professordp]

The story of Laszlo Papp, the Hungarian middleweight, is known by all who are versed in boxing history. The first boxer to win three Olympic gold medals was in many respects a victim of the Cold War era.

Living under the repressive Hungarian communist regime, Papp's professional boxing career was truncated. After he won his third gold medal in 1956, the Hungarian government allowed Papp to compete professionally in a constrained manner.

At this point he was thirty-one and near the end of his peak period. His fights were limited to contests against European boxers. He did indeed distinguish himself and was in line for a title shot when the Hungarian government essentially ended his freedom travel. He hung up his gloves in 1964 at the age of thirty-eight.

Sadly, Papp never had the opportunity to fight the top middleweights of his era--Sugar Ray Robinson, Gene Fullmer, Carmen Basilio, and Joey Giardello.

This career simulation will begin in the fall of 1952 and deal with what might have been had Papp turned professional five years earlier and was allowed free range to pursue his career without the constraints of a totalitarian government.

I selected this particular point as a result of the near convergence of two important events in the summer of 1952. In June of that year, Robinson lost his bid for the light heavyweight crown to Joey Maxim. He then retired from boxing and didn't return to the ring until the beginning of 1955.

Six weeks later, the Helsinki Olympics concluded, and Papp picked up his second gold medal. With the middlweight title vacant due to Sugar Ray's retirement, this would have been an ideal time for a twenty-six year old Laszlo Papp to enter the professional ranks.

Thus, the simulation will present Papp at his peak. For those who followed my Teofilo Stevenson simulation last year, the approach will be somewhat familiar (at some point, you might even see Skip Bailey!). There's really no point of termination in a specific sense, although there will be several critical crossroads--the first being the return of Ray Robinson in 1955. So I pretty much plan to go with where the results of Papp's fights take me.

I expect to get the sim set up and running in early December but wanted to post this preview before I got too deeply into the project. With both the Stevenson career and my current Partial Eclipse of the Sonny, you have provided me with ideas, insight, and most importantly, inspiration. So expect nothing less from all of you on this project.

This doesn't mean that the Partial Eclipse uni is going on the back burner far from it! I view it as a coninuing boxing soap opera, although it has taken on Wagnerian proportions. I'm in it for a long haul (at least the next two years).

BigBoyBrackey inspired me by demonstrating that you could run a career sim and a broad based uni at the same time and still maintain a hgih quality in both.

Quite frankly, for the past two years, I've been confined pretty much to the heavyweight division with my unis, and shifting to another division is appealing. Also, the Eclipse lumbers along with the end pretty far down the road. A career sim gives me something with a bit more focus and a faster pace.

In a number of respects, I think (at least hope) that by running two unis concurrently, ultimately they'll feed off of each other.

That said, please let me have you views and suggestions.