József Kreul "Joe" Bugner ,born in a suburb of Szeged in southern Hungary is a Hungarian-born British-Australian former heavyweight boxer and actor. He holds triple nationality, being a citizen of Hungary and a naturalized citizen of both Australiaand the United Kingdom. As an actor he is best known for his role in the 1994 action film Street Fighter, alongside Jean-Claude Van Damme and Raul Julia.Joe and his family fled to the United Kingdom in the late 1950s because of the Soviet Union's invasion of Hungary in 1956 after the Hungarian Uprising of that year. They settled in the Cambridgeshire town of St Ives near the Fens, and so, as local custom dictated, he was known as a Fen Tiger. At school Bugner excelled in sports and was the national junior discus champion in 1964. He lived and trained in Bedford during his early boxing years; he was a regular at Bedford Boys Club under the training of Paul King, and attended Goldington Road School in Bedford.
Bugner has had some work in the film industry. In 1979 he featured in an Italian film, Io sto con gli ippopotami with Bud Spencer and Terence Hill, he worked with Bud Spencer in his films in the 1980s.
He worked as the expert adviser on the Russell Crowe film, Cinderella Man, which was a film about the heavyweight boxer James J. Braddock. Bugner was dropped part way through the project, which prompted him to call Crowe, "a gutless worm and a f*****g girl".
Joe Bugner ,suffers from a serious back injur,,y he sustained from training for fights in his middle years. He also has financial problems. It was these financial problems which prompted him to re-enter the ring at such an advanced age. A benefit was held for Bugner in 2008 by Kevin Lueshing.
In November 2009 Bugner replaced Camilla Dallerup on day 4 of the British TV show I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!. He left the show on day 16 after losing a bushtucker trial called 'Jungle Jail' to fellow celebrity Stuart Manning.
