Benesh, Marian

Born on June 11, 1951 in Belgrade , Yugoslavia . Father Josip was an ethnic Croat , and mother Maria (nee Vukic) was a Serbian . Marian himself did not identify himself as either a Croatian or a Serbian people, preferring to be considered Yugoslav ^[2] .

He spent his childhood in the city of Tuzla , where he was brought up with his sister and three brothers. Since his father was a music teacher, he learned to play the piano and violin from an early age. He became interested in boxing at the age of 10, when he happened to be in the ring by chance and managed to beat an 18-year-old boxer. At the age of 16 he joined the boxing club “Slavia” from Banja Luka , where he was trained throughout his amateur career ^{[3] [4]} .

Amateur career

In 1970 and 1972, Benes took part in the European Junior Championships, but could not get here among the winners.

He achieved the first serious success at the international level in the 1973 season when he joined the main team of the Yugoslav national team and spoke at the European home championship in Belgrade , from where he brought the golden dignity award - he defeated all rivals in the light welterweight division, including in the final took over the Soviet boxer Anatoly Kamnev . For this outstanding achievement at the end of the season was recognized as the best athlete of Yugoslavia according to the newspaper Sport.

In 1974, he visited the first world boxing championship in Havana , where he was stopped by the Polish Zbigniew Kitska in the 1/8 finals of the welterweight.

At the European Championship in 1975 in Katowice also reached the 1/8 finals, losing by technical knockout to Bulgarian Plamen Yankov .

Thanks to a series of successful performances, he won the right to defend the honor of the country at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal , but already in the opening match of up to 67 kg category by unanimous decision of the judges was defeated by Venezuelan Pedro Gamarro and immediately dropped out of the fight for medals ^[5] .

During his amateur career, Benes nine times became the champion of Bosnia, four times the champion of Yugoslavia, repeatedly won the Balkan championships and match meetings with teams of other countries. In total, spent among fans about three hundred fights.

Professional career

After leaving the location of the Yugoslav national team, in August 1977, Benes successfully made his debut on a professional level. He performed exclusively in Europe, mainly in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands. He was noted for victories over several strong rivals, like the Bahamian Elisha Obed (70-5-4) and the Brazilian Everald Costa Azevedo (72-17-26).

In 1979, he won the European Boxing Union (EBU) title in the first middle weight class, which he later defended several times.

Having risen in the rankings, in 1980 he received the right to challenge the world title at the first middleweight according to the World Boxing Association (WBA), which at that time belonged to the undefeated Uganda representative Ayub Kaloula (33-0). The championship fight between them took place in Denmark and all the 15 rounds allotted lasted, in the end the judges gave a unanimous decision to Kaloula (score 145: 149, 142: 149, 147: 149).

He remained an active boxer in the early 1980s, then, after long interruptions, he conducted separate show fights in 1991 and 1997. In total, 39 fights were held in pro-ring, 32 of them won (including 21 ahead of schedule), 6 lost, whereas in one case a draw was fixed ^[6] .

Further life

Benes participated in the 1992-1995 Bosnian War , in which he lost his brother. After the war, he permanently lived in Banja Luka, was married, had two children, but eventually divorced. In later years, he experienced serious financial difficulties, lived mainly at the expense of his sister Liliana. He wrote a book about the sport “The Other Side of the Medal”, and the documentary “Once upon a time was a champion” (2004) was also devoted to him.

As of 2017, he had serious health problems, suffered from Alzheimer's disease and was forced to move in a wheelchair ^[7] .

He died on September 4, 2018 in Banja Luka at the age of 67 ^[8] .

• Marian Benes - Olympic statistics on Sports-Reference.com (Eng.)
• Marian Benes (English) - statistics of professional fights on BoxRec website