The night Ringo Bonavena beat up a Nazi who became the villain of Ghostbusters and Die Hard

the gloves are brown, old and a little wrinkled. The passage of time has put them on the ropes and Haven’t seen the action in a while. His glory days were long gone, out of arm’s reach, but who takes away what has been beaten.

they were in a bag, inside a wardrobe in a house in Ciudad Jardín, in the province of Buenos Aires, for more than 40 years. In their early days, however, they were used by Oscar Natalio Ringo good luckthe legendary Argentine boxer who went down in history, among other things, for having fought with Muhammad Ali.

The house where gloves live on nostalgia is that of Daniele Ponzo, a journalist which went through the editorial offices of Clarín, Olé and Télam, among other media. Luis, Daniel’s father, was also a journalist, but specialized in boxing. Together they went to boxing nights countless times at Luna Park and as many other places as they could.

Through him, the gloves, Berg brand, 9 oz, came into the hands of a young Daniele. The idol decided to send them as a gift after learning that everyone wanted them I was a true fan of his.

A short time ago Ponzo Jr. decided to look for gloves and the footage of the fight in which Ringo used them. The goal: to make a painting to decorate his house.

“I kept them among my dearest memories. They were light brown, from the Berg brand, and weighed a good 9 ounces – today they would be prohibited, given that those used in that category are at least 12 ounces -, the smallest that Ringo used throughout his career,” says Ponzo of the legendary boxer, who was murdered in 1976 in the United States and is now made into a series.

Ringo Bonavena and the night of the beating of a Nazi

It is the night of September 20, 1969 at the Berlin Sports Palace. He Berliner Sportpalast That Bonavena victory was the scene by technical knockout in the third round against the German Wilhelm Von Homburg. It did not have much diffusion in Argentina and, according to the owner of the gloves, that fight was aimed raise funds to finalize his most remembered battle: December 5, 1970, at Madison Square Garden in New York against Ali.

The 18 years that the platform has just turned Youtube he clarified that almost everything, if not, is archived somewhere in the largest audiovisual archive that humanity has ever had at its disposal.

There, Ponzo found a short video of the fight. And there he discovers a situation that explains Bonavena’s furious victory in a Berlin that has just been rebuilt after the Second World War.

What happened? After they both entered the ring, the lanky German, before taking off his white coat to match his blond, almost albino hair, he gestured to the Argentine. She kissed some kind of medal. kissed a swastika. And he did it in the same stadium that decades ago had been the scene of numerous acts of the dictator and of genocide Adolf Hitler during Nazi Germany. there he pitched the call for “total war” through the voice of his Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels.

Von Homburg, actually born with the name and surname of Norbert Grupe (1940), was the son of Richard, a German soldier of the Third Reich, also served in the Buchenwald extermination camp300 kilometers from Berlin.

From that fight, Ponzo recalls the giddy attitude of the Argentine heavyweight. “Five times Ringo threw Von Homburg in just three shifts -he illustrates-. He hit him with real fury, he knew he was hurting him and he hit him again and again to make him fall, but waiting for him to get up, to attack him again, with a coldness unusual in him, a sanguine but fair boxer, until finally the corner kick he took pity on the German and threw in the towel”.

“There it was revealed that Ringo had wanted beat him upas if he was emulating Emile Griffith when at the age of seven he literally beat Benny Kid Paret to death because the Cuban had called the American “scum of the black race” for his homosexuality” contextualizes the journalist.

She reflects, “Not only did the way she beat him hold my attention, but despite the tremendous beating she had given him, After the fight, Ringo leapfrogged the German, literally knocked out, with the clear intention of continuing to hit him and had to be contained by the referee to stop him from doing so. There was something. But why so angry? why this unusual fury into a chatty and good-natured boy like Ringo?

The trigger for Ringo’s rampage

After watching the fight over and over again, the reporter understood. “The German had proved himself the representative of the superior race and he brandished the emblem of his hatred against the inferior Latino, something Ringo must have guessed or even felt in the days before.

That’s why you might as well have prepared yourself the extravagant celebration for victory above the ring that empties inside head and body the contents of a bottle extra brut champagne“.

Ernesto Cherquis Bialo, a journalist who also specializes in sports, admits he didn’t cover the fight, but remembers how “an aesthetically unpleasant fight”.

“The German was striking with his long blond hair, which was unusual for the time, but it wasn’t a milestone in Ringo’s career,” he adds.

Bonavena came from “going to the fuss” in a fight in Montevideo, Uruguay to help Gregorio Goyo Peraltawho had asked him fake a draw in a rematch for the title he had lost. It was so he could rebuild her career, she told her. And Ringo accepted. Also, it served him to help finance his fight against Ali, which would take place a year later.

The Controversial Von Homburg: From Wrestling to the Big Screen

Remembered by the German press of those times for sitting in a television studio for an interview and remaining silent in front of every question about the lost fight against the Argentine and nicknamed “Prince”, at his own requestthe German is the protagonist of a surprising story.

His real name was Norbert Richard Hartmut Grupe. He had changed his name in the United States where he had emigrated, after the Second World War and the fall of Nazi Germany, with his father Richard Grupe, also a former boxer and wrestler.

“The thing is Grupe father had operated in the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald and changing his surname must have certainly been something he was advised to do in the United States…”, says Ponzo.

Herein lies the explanation of why that swastika was displayed in the ring a few seconds before the fight and that perhaps it was not only an inherited gesture but also as prepared as it is intimidating.

Von Homburg, characterized by most journalists of the time who knew him as a despicable charactersuffered that defeat as an almost intolerable humiliation and a year later he gave up boxing.

never stated he didn’t hate Jews, he had nothing against themA clarification that perhaps he thought necessary pave his acting career.

In that function he performed various roles, play Nazi soldiers in as many war films as he could, he already had malevolent characters, such as the tyrant Vigo Von Homburg Deutschendorf in “Ghostbusters II”the bad James in “Die Hard” AND the bloodthirsty Souteneur in “Stroszek” by Werner Herzog.

He liked the role and played it well. Even in real life he was jailed for drug trafficking and pimping. He was even accused by his father of abusing his stepmother and even having a daughter with her, whom he called her sister. His last few years he lived alone in Santa Monica, California with his dog Kiss. He died of cancer in Mexico in 2004 at the age of 63.