Jürgen Blin in his corner bar at Hamburg Central Station in 2008
Photo: Jens Ressing/ picture alliance/ dpa
The story of winning the lottery fits perfectly into the life of Jürgen Blin.
He actually won 1.7 million euros in the lottery two years ago.
He just had to spread the word, full of joy.
As a result, even people who shouldn't have heard about it heard about it.
A short time later, Blin's home was broken into and the 300,000 euros that he kept in the safe at home from the lottery win were stolen.
The perpetrators were later caught, but the money was gone.
Easy come easy go.
That's how it was with Jürgen Blin again and again.
Sometimes he was just too gullible.
The life of Jürgen Blin, which ended on Sunday at the age of 79, was a boxer's life.
Just like you imagine after Hollywood movies.
Someone who came from the bottom, fought his way up and wasn't exactly lucky afterwards.
A life full of stories.
Ali opponents, European champions, pub owner.
Laughed at by classmates
He was born and grew up in Burg on Fehmarn as the son of a milker, as it says in every biographical text about Blin.
Just as with boxer Graciano Rocchigiani, it was never missing that he was the son of a Sardinian iron bender.
Even as a child, Blin had to help out on the farm, the father was an alcoholic, a maniac who beat up his son, as Blin said about him.
At school, the other kids laughed at him because he smelled like dung when he sat in class.
Blin knew early on that he had to get out of this world, out into a world beyond Burg auf Fehmarn.
At 14 he left the confines of his homeland for enticing, glittering Hamburg, the big city.
And what do you traditionally do when you go to Hamburg?
You hire yourself out as a cabin boy.
Blin not only gets to know the big city early on, he gets to know the seas of the world, up along Norway's coast to the North Cape, across the Atlantic to Canada, Blin lets the wind blow in his face before returning to Hamburg, where he then begins an apprenticeship as a butcher.
Boxing hall opposite the slaughterhouse
Opposite the slaughterhouse is a boxing hall, so why not take a look inside?
And so it begins, the sporting story of the man who was the best boxer in Germany in the early 1970s.
Blin has fought 48 fights in his career, including breathtaking fights against his constant rival Gerd Zech, against Norbert Grupe, the legendary Prince of Homburg, against the Spaniard José Manuel Urtain, the Basque lumberjack, against whom Blin won the European Championship title in 1972 boxed, against the hard-hitting Brit Joe Bugner, against whom he lost his European title again - and yet his career is reduced to one fight over and over again: that fight on Boxing Day 1971 in the Hallenstadion in Zurich: Jürgen Blin against Muhammad Ali .
20,000 spectators, 180,000 D-Mark fight exchange.
Ali had previously lost his title fight to Joe Frazier.
The Greatest needed a build-up fight, a build-up opponent, one where he could regain his confidence.
He needed someone like Blin.
Bought to lose
The German was aware of this when his manager Fritz Wiene was offered the Ali fight.
“Of course I was bought to lose.
They hadn't found an opponent, now I should be the victim," he recalled decades later in the Hamburger Abendblatt about the fight, and also that "I was incredibly excited beforehand and was fed up."
He was in the ring for seven rounds against the great Ali before one of the Superstar's fists sent him down.
"Not everyone can last seven rounds against Ali," Blin later told SPIEGEL. He could have boxed even more, but he wanted to avoid a bitter beating.
He just stayed there.
"I knew I didn't stand a chance."
The next day he was back in Hamburg in the butcher's shop at the counter.
matter of honour.
Besides Karl Mildenberger, he is the only German who was allowed to box against Ali.
Even if Blin was later annoyed that everyone only wanted to talk to him about Ali: The pride of being part of the exclusive circle of Ali opponents, along with Frazier, Foreman, Ken Norton, Larry Holmes and Leon Spinks, you could always tell.
In 1973 he no longer wanted to get in the ring, he switched.
The master butcher and professional boxer became an innkeeper.
His corner pub at the main train station, a better snack bar, "Jürgen Blin's beer and snack bar," had a certain cult status in Hamburg.
Stuffed with memorabilia from his sports career, the champion himself stood at the tap, a portrait of Ali behind the counter, of course.
Blin was never a lucky child in life, his fortune crumbled after his divorce, a son took his own life at an early age.
He endured it all.
Also that he was suddenly in the headlines again in 2007 because ARD commentator Waldemar Hartmann declared him dead at a boxing event on television live in front of a TV audience of millions.
Blin first wanted a correction from ARD, then he accepted it with a shrug.
Happens.
Another beer for the guest passing through.
In 2012 it was all over with the pub, even with his attempts to continue in the boxing business as a trainer and as chairman of the Hamburg boxing club BC Sportmann, he had already stopped.
Most recently he lived in seclusion in his house in the Boberg district of Hamburg.
And when the press stopped by from time to time on his birthday, he told me again what it was like back then in Zurich, Christmas 1971, when he lasted seven rounds against the greatest boxer of all time.
