Gustav Scholz?

I think he must have been pretty sound .Nice record ,beat some good Euros&was their champ at middle.Really silly have to admit just have to go on EXCELLENT RING mag. coverage literature. I wish I could have seen a lot of theses guys like the oldtimers!!! WOW!!!!Know he took a lot of flak when Don fullmer journeyman Jimmy Martinez held him to draws!!!Like Luis Folledo of Spain campaigned at the time rated top 5 by RING a couple of years> Always gave credence to Ring Fleischer, Nat Loubet, Dan Daniel, Lew Eskin that crew. I Know they gave a lot of credence to Euro,British Empire champs in the good ol days!!

 

I`ve got a brief highlight of the sholz/johnson fight, about two minutes worth and maybe one or two other highlights of the man. Anyway from the little film I have seen of him he had a sneaky straight right hand which he landed a few times on Johnson in that brief clip, his style was a bit Schmelling-like if you will, pawing jab followed by powerful and accurate rights although he had a good left hook too from the looks of it. Good footwork as well, always well balanced and ready to get full leverage into his punches when he planted his feet, all in all a good solid fighter he was judging by his record and from what I have seen of him.

 

"Bubi" Scholz was a helluva fighter -- a huge German sports hero.

Unfortunately, the last time I heard of him, he shot his wife to death after a drunken party.

Think it was in the early '80s. Don't know how it was resolved.

 

I've heard conflicting accounts of the fight with Scholz, with same writers saying it was a close, competitive fight, while others (like Nat Fleischer) saying it was an impressive performance by Johnson.

Scholz was not well known in the US at the time, and it was speculated by some that he was a protected fighter with a padded record. Having never seen Scholz fight, I can't say anything myself. A Johnson-Scholz fight was a big fight for big money over in Germany, and I imagine that's why Johnson took it. Scholz had previously been rated as a middleweight as well, I believe.

 

He basically got a slap on the wrist. Went to jail for a few years, then released.

He's dead now.


Here was the obit that came out after he died:

THERE ARE people who die more than once during their lifetime. The German boxer "Bubi" Scholz was one of them. An idol of post-war Germany during his boxing career, Scholz was later overtaken by personal tragedy, by Alzheimer's, and by a cultural change that made his kind of hero look outdated and faintly embarrassing.

He was born Gustav Scholz in 1930, in a workers' district of Berlin, the Prenzlauerberg, today the haunt of artists and would-be Bohemians. His father was a blacksmith, but little Gustav was far from robust. His nickname, "Bubi", is a less than flattering epithet for someone of delicate constitution, a bit of a mother's boy, a weed. When he evinced interest in boxing, his doctor told him that his bone structure would not support that kind of exertion. So he became a mechanic and a cook instead.

It is such a good, German name, Gustav Scholz, typically Berlin, solid and reliable, salt of the earth. When young Bubi stumbled upon a pair of boxing gloves and won a professional fight in 1948 without ever having fought as an amateur, post-war Germany finally had a hero, someone who allowed them to be on the winning side for a change.

The rise of Bubi Scholz is one of the legends of a Germany born out of the ruins. Physically attractive and seemingly invincible (he lost only two fights during his entire career), he was a star, complete with hysterical fans. He had glamour, fast cars, plenty of women, and the dangerous aura of a hero who knows no tomorrow. When he boxed, the German Chancellor Willy Brandt rubbed shoulders with film stars at the ringside. Scholz was a legend, a mighty combatant, reminded of his humble beginnings only by the "Bubi", which stuck to him as an ironic reinforcement of his status.

When the European Champion Scholz fought the US boxer Harold Johnson for the world title in 1962, he lost narrowly on points, a decision many observers thought questionable. The fight won him a record DM100,000, though, and only enhanced his status as the embodiment of his nation's rise from the ashes.

There was an afterlife for Scholz the boxer when he became a businessman during the 1980s, choosing perfumery, of all things, as his line of trade. "I am in business now, the archetype of a successful man," he boasted. "There are hundreds of thousands like me in the Federal Republic. If I had the courage of megalomania I would say: we are the republic!"

But Scholz was not to be the republic for very long. In 1984 he shot his wife with a hunting rifle, through the bathroom door. He was drunk at the time and claimed it was an accident. The popular press, always interested in his private life, ripped into him. His erstwhile fans took it all in with the same ravenous hunger with which they had watched him fight, but the times were different now: they no longer needed heroes of his type - this was the heyday of Boris Becker. Germany was hungry for gossip, but no longer hungry.

Scholz went to prison for three years and was released into a world that no longer had any need of him. He lived in obscurity and spent his last years in a care home. Only a television film in 1998 reminded the nation of a man who had been the epitome of glamour but had changed into an ageing wreck with bloated face, destroyed by alcohol and Alzheimer's.

Gustav "Bubi" Scholz, boxer: born Berlin 12 April 1930; twice married; died Berlin 21 August 2000.