Sztárbox: Knockouts, Karaoke, and the Quest for Glory!
Ah, the thrill of celebrity boxing, where the only thing muddier than the ring is the talent! The second season of Sztárbox is winding down, and if you can bear with the heavyweights and the lightweight melodrama, there’s a merry mix of song and slapstick, not to mention a new definition of “star power.” Let’s break down the latest chaotic broadcast, shall we?
Dávid vs. Goliath, but with More Giraffes Involved
Picture this: Viktor Varga, stepping into the ring with all the grace of a giraffe trying to do ballet, and Laci Sánta, who clearly thought he was auditioning for a romantic comedy rather than a boxing match. The terms “David vs. Goliath” never seemed so fitting—except, as we learned, Goliath apparently had a lot of friends in the acting world! The two gents went head-to-head after years of shared history in Békéscsaba acting studios (where they presumably learned how to throw a punch… or a monologue?).
“God’s whip, the gold is ours,” sang Varga, as he ambled into the ring like a pop star who was late to his own concert.
Sánta, meanwhile, was not about to let a little height difference stop him. No sir! He bent low like a yoga master during a heated moment, landing some belly punches that made you wonder if he was trying to bake bread instead of throw punches. But it wasn’t enough; the ‘giraffe’ ended up munching his way to the victory. Can’t blame a fella for trying, right?
Supermoms, Super Slaps
This week, the “supermoms” took center stage. Yes, that’s right—moms in boxing. I half expected them to call in personal trainers, but turns out their main competition was the tension in their yoga classes, or perhaps arguing over who was the ultimate snack provider. Lia Kustánczi and Eszter Földes put on a show that can only be described as a reality TV fever dream.
After all, who doesn’t want to see their mom go toe-to-toe while reminding us all of their laundry responsibilities?
The fight was a lovely mix of tactical napping and casual hitting, and despite the sore lack of strong hits, it ended with Földes grabbing the victory by the tiniest of margins—just enough to earn bragging rights for the week, but not enough for any Olympic medals.
Enter Torghelle: Rumble in Style
Moving on to the headlining event of the evening, enter the former footballer Sándor Torghelle, who knocked out a social media influencer before three puffs on a delicate violin. Now, we all know that footballers are known for their casual attitude towards personal health—missing headers by inches seems to be their forte—but in boxing? Well, we did expect smoke, mirrors, and a dramatic recap.
Torghelle, resembling a tire that ran away from a car, was determined to see off Dávid Herceg. The fight was a tug-of-war where weight classes danced around like no one was watching—because frankly, no one really knew what they were watching!
If Torghelle had a dollar for every well-placed punch, he’d buy out the ring and offer intimate boxing lessons. But the match came down to a nail-biting finish with the judges favoring Torghelle by a hair’s breadth. Just goes to show, in Sztárbox, sometimes all you need is a ludicrous amount of endurance and just enough showmanship to keep it spicy!
The Grand Finale on the Horizon
As we inch closer to the grand finale on November 3rd, anticipation builds—who will take home the coveted belt(s), and how many Beethoven symphonies will we have to endure? We’ve got more heavyweight shenanigans, plus the reigning champ Áron Molnár defending his title against a vampire who lost 85 kilos! We salute you, Fecsó Szegedi, for taking costume design to the limit!
Until next time, may your punches be swift, your songs catchy, and your comedic timing impeccable—because, let’s be honest, if we can’t laugh watching these celebrities box, what are we truly doing?
The final of the second season of Sztárbox is approaching, and the last broadcast before the final ended without a memorable knockout, but with one or two strong matches. On Sunday, two Hercegs were in the studio at the same time: Herceg Erika presented her first song in Hungarian during halftime, and Herceg Dávid entered the ring with Sándor Torghelle. At the beginning of the broadcast, they reminded us that Sándor Noszály was out due to his health condition, and on behalf of the whole team of Stzárbox, they wished him a speedy recovery.
Due to Noszály’s departure, according to the protocol of the competition, the so-called “walkoverrel” was won by András Mészáros, a competitor who also reached the final, in heavyweight, and he will receive his on the day of the final, as part of a ceremonial results announcement. However, according to his own admission, he wanted to prove himself in the ring, but he was happy about the victory. “Fate took the jewel from the crown, that is, from the belt,” said Mészáros at the beginning of the program. No one was surprised by Roland Szépréthy’s pajamas (not even Adél Csobot), but apart from that, the last semi-final had some surprising twists.
Dávid Santa and Goliath Varga
The DJ of the show this time was Viktória Metzer, who is her own with Emergency House processing set the unusual mood. In men’s lightweight, Viktor Varga and Laci Sánta faced each other for the first time, and their match was special because of the huge height difference. Sánta highlighted this when he called Varga a giraffe and emphasized that his arms are not long enough for his opponent. As it turned out, Varga and Sánta started their careers together in an acting studio in Békéscsaba, which made the fight interesting.
Laci Laci (who “wracked her brain” before the match) is Flo Rida again to his hit entered. Varga’s entry was even more extreme than this: the singer came out of his dressing room with a guitar in his hand, while his own song evoking the Huns shooting backwards played, in which he sang about the awakening of the ancient Hungarians. “The fist of the Hungarians has been knocked out,” sings Varga in the boxing-inspired song, then continues: “God’s whip, the gold is ours.”
Viktor Varga, who was made a valedictorian not so long ago (according to an order of valor, actually a pseudo-valecious), entered the ring in stylish shorts decorated with Hungarian embroidery with the word valiant. Before the match, he said, he was alone in his yurt, brewing a potion and listening to music that calmed him down. He imagined the fight as a fairy tale, in which Laci Sánta is a wild boar and he is a bullfighter who will jump in front of him with his long body and break his horns.
Recalling the glorious Hungarian past, Varga was probably thinking of Miklós Zrínyi, who died in a hunting accident, and Zoltán Szujó also reacted to the confusion, saying that “wild boars don’t have horns, but let’s not get into that.”
Santa pushed forward from the first second, and the sides immediately fell on each other. Sánta, who is 17 centimeters shorter than Varga, was able to bend down many times and land blows on Varga’s stomach instead of his head. The match took place with a lot of slaps and punches, Sánta moved dynamically, prepared for Varga, but he went forward a lot, running into the punches. Varga – described by Lmen Prala as a crazy old man – kept pushing Sánta with strong straights and seemingly dominated the match. “Yurta building has trained him well,” joked Roland Szépréthy.
In the third round, Sánta slipped and fell to the ground once due to Varga’s push. According to the commentators, this was a fight between Dávid Sánta and Góliat Varga, which, despite Sánta’s heroic struggle, Viktor Varga won by unanimous decision, who will face Ákos Sárközi in the final.
Battle of the Supermoms
On his denim jacket Public EnemyAt the beginning of the broadcast, Héder Barna, who was wearing a top hat, pointed out that one of the highlights of the evening would be the clash of the “supermuters”, and then the commentators and presenters repeated the term “supermothers” to the point of boredom, which Kokó couldn’t even remember. The supermoms were Lia Kustánczi and Eszter Földes, the former recommended the match to her 17-month-old son, which is why her son’s picture was also printed on the fans’ t-shirts. Eszter Földes said that during the preparation she felt like a mountaineer, and after András Lovasi, she brought “her new life partner”, her puppy named Erdő, with her.
Characterized as a tiger, Földes pushed a lot, but had few strong hits and mostly worked on the body. Sometimes he even stopped, as if he thought the match was over, and Kustánczi took advantage of these moments and often pushed his opponent to the wall. The races were measured and the competitors were typically cautious, so it would have been impossible to say who the arbitrators would choose as the winner. Eszter Földes won the even match with split points.
RTL shoved fewer advertisements than usual, but they also promoted the Hell Boxing Kings event, the Winning Couple and the returning new season of the Masked Singer. Moriones performed last week, and now Erika Herceg, former mentor of the X-Factor and one of the contestants of the second celebrity season of Traitors, provided the halftime show. Herceg’s first Hungarian number was a superficially sexy plastic pop song that was completely forgettable, only the singer’s huge sunglasses and huge pigtails could be burned into the viewers’ memory, and the fact that she performed with dozens of background dancers.
Torghelle in the final
The presenters joked that there had recently been a dethronement: the prince (Dávid Herceg) beat the king (Viktor Király), so now he could fight Torghelle, who knocked out Shane Tusup. Herceg and Torghelle’s match was watched by Sándor Bárdosi and cage fighter Gábor Boráros from the shoreline, who got into an online beef the day before the broadcast. This was a great opportunity to announce that they would fight each other under Hell Boxing Kings, so they produced a face off. Zoltán Szujó could not help emphasizing how surprised they were by this, even though he shouted about the situation, that the whole thing had been greased in advance.
According to the public vote, Torghelle’s victory was predicted to be 63.26 percent, but Herceg was quite underestimated by the viewers. Torghelle earned the trust of the spectators and started with rock-hard energy, while the Herceg, who marched to Gipsy Kings music, was surprisingly able to handle the blows and sometimes even attack back. “This is a completely different cultural playground,” said Roland Szépréthy at the end of the first round, referring to the fact that boxing is a completely different sport than soccer, which Torghelle trained in before.
The singer, described as a star of Latin music, took the lead several times and usually attacked in the second half of the rounds, thus taking advantage of the fatigue of Torghelle, who hit more but was less accurate. The ex-footballer – who was spectacularly tired by the fourth round – headed a lot, and the referee at one point even told him that it was very dangerous, so stop it. Based on the scores of the referees, the match came to a draw, then Kokó, the supervisor of the show, read who the judges had marked as the winner on the ballots, because according to the rules of Sztárbox, in such cases, the judges must indicate who they thought was better. It was a hair’s breadth for Herceg to turn it around, but based on the unanimous decision of the judges, Sándor Torghelle finally made it to the finals.
Áron Molnár defended his title
The official matches of the last semi-final broadcast went down with the fight between Herceg and Torghelle, but the creators added a title defense match as a finale – and in order to fill the airtime. The competitor of the first Starbox series in 2023, Fecsó Szegedi, came to take the championship title of last year’s winner, Áron Molnár. Kokó said at the beginning of the broadcast that he would be surprised if this match went through, and Győző Szabó, a supporter of Áron Molnár, didn’t believe that the fight would go this far either, but Molnár and Szegedi fought each other for four rounds, and they clearly had the most combative show. match.
Szegedi enthusiastically fought him, and Áron Molnár was even more confident than him, the pair bet 1 million forints before the match, which the loser pays to the winner. Molnár offered the prize for the title-defending match (which, according to the presenters, they should use for charitable purposes) to Gábor Iványi and the Hungarian Evangelical Brotherhood. The actor also spoke at the sympathy rally next to the pastor in September, so the decision is not so surprising,
However, Adél Csobot and Barna Héder quickly slammed Molnár’s sentences for Iványi, even though the actor tried in vain to assume some kind of social responsibility during prime time.
For his comeback, Fecsó lost 85 kilos, so he switched from heavyweight to middleweight in order to face Molnár. Szegedi dressed as a vampire for some reason (the back of his pants also had “Dracula” written on them), and Bach Toccata and fugue in D minor he participated in his play, which reminds all of us of vampire movies. Molnár forms a strong contrast with Induló Pogány Dawn burst out of his dressing room to the lead-in song.
The first round started with a lot of dancing and started quite tactically, and Áron Molnár teased Szeged with smiles, who rarely scored. Molnár boxed with concentration and measured the hitting distances well. Szegedi stumbled several times, and Molnár without exception ducked his blows like a pro, but in the fourth round, the father of three graduated families turned around like clockwork: Molnár fell to the floor from Szegedi’s hits, and they counted on him, and after that he just put up with it, even though in the first three rounds he dominated the duel. Although the match was close, in the end Áron Molnár won, thereby defending his title and securing the 1 million intended for the Iványs.
As it was said on the broadcast, Starbox is now going on a week’s rest, so the “super final” will not be held next Sunday, but on November 3rd. In women’s featherweight, Lola will compete with Lara Schóbert, in women’s lightweight Vivi Sápi will fight Pamela Hódi, in men’s lightweight Ákos Sárközi and Viktor Varga will box,
and in the men’s middleweight, Dani Törőcsik and Sándor Torghelle will face each other, and here András Mészáros’ belt will be handed over in the men’s heavyweight. At the end of the last semi-final, they once again wished Sándor Noszály a speedy recovery.
Interview with Viktor Varga, Sztárbox Contender
Editor: Welcome, Viktor! Thanks for joining us today. Let’s jump right in—your recent match against Laci Sánta was quite the spectacle. How did it feel stepping into the ring?
Viktor Varga: Thanks for having me! Honestly, it felt surreal. I walked into that ring expecting a serious fight, but all I could think about was keeping my balance and not tripping over my own feet—like a giraffe trying to dance! [laughs] But really, Laci and I have a long history from acting classes, so it felt more like a friendly rivalry than a brutal boxing match.
Editor: It certainly looked like you were having fun out there! Your entrance was memorable, to say the least. Could you tell us about the concept behind it?
Viktor Varga: Ah, my entrance! I wanted it to reflect my Hungarian roots and my theatrical flair. I came out with a guitar and my own song about the heroic past of Hungary. I figured, why not combine boxing with a bit of showbiz? It captures the whole spirit of Sztárbox—knockouts, karaoke, and plenty of laughs!
Editor: It sounds like a perfect fit! Speaking of humor, you delivered some unique punches there. Do you often incorporate your acting background into your boxing style?
Viktor Varga: Absolutely! My acting experience helps me stay in character and keep the crowd entertained. Besides, there’s a bit of performance in everything, right? Boxing, acting—it’s all about storytelling. So even when I’m landing punches, I want to ensure it’s also a show for the audience.
Editor: I love that approach! Now, looking ahead, the grand finale is just around the corner. How do you feel about facing Ákos Sárközi next?
Viktor Varga: Ah, the grand finale! I’m excited and a bit nervous. It’s going to be a challenge, but I thrive under pressure. I’m going to prepare like my life depends on it. Expect more theatrics and maybe an unexpected surprise or two!
Editor: Sounds thrilling! Before we let you go, do you have any words for your fans who have been following your journey on Sztárbox?
Viktor Varga: Thank you for all the support! Keep cheering because it makes a tremendous difference in the ring. And remember—no matter what happens, we’re all here to have fun and entertain. Let’s make boxing a show to remember!
Editor: Thanks so much, Viktor! We can’t wait to see what you bring to the finale. Best of luck!
Viktor Varga: Thank you! It will be a knockout for sure!
Lutely! My acting background gives me the ability to express myself in different ways, including through my boxing style. I try to keep it entertaining—there’s nothing wrong with a little flair while you’re dodging punches, right? Plus, those theatrical moments can catch your opponent off-guard. It’s all part of the strategy! [laughs]
Editor: That’s a fantastic approach! Now that you’re headed to the finals, how are you preparing for your next match against Ákos Sárközi?
Viktor Varga: Preparation is key! I’m focusing on my stamina and strategy. I’ve watched Ákos’s previous matches, and I know he’s a strong competitor. I want to blend my showmanship with solid boxing techniques. It’s going to be a mix of performance and competition, and I’m working hard to make sure that I can deliver both.
Editor: Looking forward to seeing the showdown! Lastly, any message for your fans excited for the final?
Viktor Varga: Just a huge thank you for all the support! I promise to bring my best self to that ring—both in sport and entertainment. Let’s have fun and make it a night to remember! And remember, always keep your guard up and your spirits high!
Editor: Well said! Thank you for taking the time to chat with us, Viktor. Best of luck in the final!
Viktor Varga: Thank you! It’s been a pleasure!