René Weller is dead. He was European boxing champion and was named “Boxer of the Year” five times. “Handsome René” has died at the age of 69 after a long illness. His wife Maria, who cared for him to the end, found emotional words about his death on Tuesday (August 22, 2023), which she posted on Instagram: “Hand in hand and in my arms you are at home at 5:50 p.m. today in peace gone from me”.
Weller last lived in his hometown of Pforzheim and had been suffering from dementia for years. He and his wife made the illness public in the summer of 2021. “You fought like a lion but unfortunately lost your last fight,” she writes. “I thank you for the beautiful life and our unique great love.”
The 1983 World Champion loved the fast life, liked to show what he could afford and go wild. The five-time “Boxer of the Year” was arrested in 1999. Among other things, Weller was sentenced to seven years in prison, of which he had to serve four, for receiving stolen goods and dealing in cocaine. After his release, Weller tried his hand at being an actor, musician, boxing trainer and initiator of an entertainment show – classic all-down situations, but he was always able to find something positive because he was already busy with it.
His quote became famous: “Where I am is at the top, if I’m at the bottom, the bottom is at the top” – the philosophy of a roly-poly. And it is precisely this quote that the Berlin hardcore band Surrogate, who wrote some of the most exciting songs of their time between 1994 and 2003, took up.
“We’re always up. We are always at the top. And when we’re down, down is up, down is up,” Patrick Wagner rhymed in “Hell in Hell,” perhaps her best song. In 2002, “Hell in Hell” was released on the album of the same name. Weller even became the leading actor in the accompanying video, filmed in the Pankow high school “Carl von Ossietzky”. René Weller during the shooting: “Not bad at all, the song.”
A little later the trio around the founding members Wagner (guitar, vocals), Tilo Schierz-Crusius (bass) and Mai-Linh Truong (drums) unfortunately broke up; a strong album finish with riffs that only a die-hard AC/DC fan like Wagner could come up with. Today Patrick Wagner has a new project with the band Violence.
The Wellers had planned the funeral service long ago. According to Maria Weller, six former boxers are to carry the coffin into the chapel, accompanied by “Time to say goodbye” by Andrea Bocelli. Inside, the coffin is lined with Harley-Davidson bed linen, outside with a red rose. Also in the coffin. Weller’s original boxing gloves and a German flag.