W.hen he is asked about this one fight that made him immortal as a professional boxer, Jürgen Blin is ruthlessly honest. This has to do with his conviction that has grown in the ring that a decent man has to face himself. Anything fiddling around or even lying is just a waste of time for him, with which someone cheats or, even worse, himself. So he says straightforward: “I didn’t have a chance, I’m not that presumptuous.” And: “They probably thought: He’s boxing to some extent, but he can’t be dangerous for him. . . “
It sounded very different around him back then. Blins comparison with Muhammad Ali (“The Greatest”) was jazzed up into an exciting heavyweight duel that nobody should miss. It was the usual Ballyhoo with which the promoters wanted to fill the Zurich Hallenstadion on Boxing Day 1971, but at best a half-truth. For Blin, on the other hand, the result of the comparison without a title was as good as fixed. The 43rd fight in his nine-year professional career (1964 – 1973) was “the only one where I knew from the start: You can’t win this thing.”
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