René Weller was very successful as an amateur and professional boxer and even won the European Championship. The “beautiful René” is remembered mainly because of his extravagant performances. Now he is dead.
René Weller even went on a joint PR tour with Muhammad Ali in 1979. He asked the “greatest of all time” what the secret of boxing was. And Ali replied, “Having fun! Anything else is boring.”
That’s exactly what Weller always seemed to have stuck to. He died Tuesday night at the age of 69. His wife Maria confirmed a corresponding report by the “Bild” newspaper to the German Press Agency on Wednesday night.
Boxer suffered from dementia
“You fought like a lion but sadly lost your last fight,” she wrote on their shared Instagram page. In the summer of 2021, he and his wife made their dementia public. “Hand in hand and in my arms you left me at home at 5:50 p.m. today in peace,” the post continued. “I thank you for the beautiful life and our unique great love,” she added.
The “beautiful René” was one of the most dazzling and also most successful boxers that ever existed in Germany. He was world and European champion, but he became even better known for his extravagant appearance.
Condition had been bad for weeks
The approaching death of the former champion had become apparent in the past few days. His wife asked his friends to say goodbye to him. Weller, who lived in his hometown of Pforzheim, ended up having a hard time with the disease. “The champ hardly speaks, lives in his own world,” Maria Weller told the “Bild” newspaper in mid-April about her husband’s poor condition, even then: “He almost always lies in bed and sleeps a lot, mostly recognizes me no more. I have to feed him.” In the meantime, her husband had only eaten “semolina porridge with sugar and cinnamon” and “some cocoa”.
Born in 1953 as the son of a boxer, Weller joined the local boxing club at the age of twelve. He financed his first jock strap by selling his stamp collection.
Extravagant appearances
By the time he turned professional in 1980, the 1976 Olympic competitor had fought a total of 355 amateur fights, winning an incredible 338 of them. More important than all the hooks, jabs and evasive maneuvers, however, was that he created an image that made him popular outside of the ring made. The reason: “I had to attract attention in order to become popular,” Weller told the German Press Agency on the occasion of his 65th birthday in 2018. “Who in Germany was interested in a normal lightweight boxer?”
So he called himself “Golden Boy”, wore glittering shorts with loud messages in the ring, posed half-naked with finger-thick gold chains on motorcycles, sang the “René Weller Rap” in 1985 and played the leading role in the feature film “Macho Man” in the same year “. The media had long since named Weller “beautiful René”, and the womanizer was only too happy to accept this role. “I’m the only German who looks better naked than dressed,” he said.
arrest and detention
In 1983 he won the super featherweight world championship by beating the American James Ortega in the first round with a knockout – albeit at the World Athletic Association, which had been founded just two years earlier and was of little importance. A year later, Weller was also European champion and lost only the fifth title defense against the eventual WBO champion Gert Bo Jacobsen. That was the only loss of his professional career.
The five-time “Boxer of the Year” rated his arrest and arrest in 1999 as a much worse bankruptcy. Among other things, Weller was sentenced to seven years in prison for receiving stolen goods and dealing in cocaine, four of which he had to serve.
“Be the Strongest”
After his release, Weller tried his hand at being an actor, musician, boxing trainer and initiator of an entertainment show (“The Return of the Tough Guys”). He also dinged through various reality show formats, where he managed the feat of being thrown out of the Big Brother village after just one week in 2005: the formerly most beautiful naked boxer in Germany had presented his roommates with his bare bottom.
picture series
“Lost the last fight”: The boxing world mourns the loss of René Weller
Weller never got boring. He was world champion, “Pforzheim’s Ali”, best boxer in Europe, partner in a leather factory, gold jewelry seller, loudmouth, heartthrob, men’s hero. On his 65th birthday, he said: “I always wanted to be the strongest and have fun doing it. Both things worked out pretty well most of the time.”