a few months later. Many consider this as a crucial point in Kovács's professional career as he ultimately never fought in the United States. Instead his management started to organize another event in Budapest against former WBO featherweight champion and reigning EBU champion Steve Robinson. In June 2000 Kovács vanquished a shutout victory against Robinson, grabbed the EBU belt and became the mandatory WBO challenger for Hamed. Hamed chose to relinquish the WBO belt and fight Mexican superstar Marco Antonio Barrera instead. The WBO ordered Kovács and Antonio "Chelo" Diaz from the Dominican Republic to fight for Hamed's vacated belt. In January 2001 in Munich, on his twentieth professional fight, Kovács TKOd Diaz in the 12th round and became the first Hungarian professional boxing world champion. Kovács's first title defense match came in June 2001, against unheralded Argentinian Julio Pablo Chacón. Chacón also participated on the 1996 Olympics, and won a bronze medal in the featherweight division, coincidentally defeating another member of the Hungarian team János Nagy in the quarter-finals before losing to the eventual gold medalist Somluck Kamsing in the semis. He had a solid professional record but rarely fight outside Argentina, and one year before his fight against Kovács he suffered a lopsided defeat against WBA champion Fred Norwood in Mendoza. With thousands of home supporters behind him Kovács seemed to be the overwhelming favourite of the bout. However, on 16 June 2001 Chacón shocked the Hungarian crowd by knocking out Kovács in the sixth round. In the first four rounds Kovács built up a comfortable lead on all scorecards, but in the fifth Chacón rocked him with a monster right hook. Kovács's knees buckled, and though he did not go down and spread his arms to show that he is OK, he was rightfully counted on by the referee. Still shaken by punch (which was the first knockdown since his amateur career) and urged by the fans, instead of trying to survive the round he went after his opponent and only seconds before the bell he was caught again, this time by a huge left hook and was floored. He stood up visibly in trouble, only to be saved by the end of the round. His former coach Imre Szántó, acting as a TV commentator kept telling in the break that he should not continue the fight, yet Kovács came out for the sixth round, only to