Dutchman Alex Blanchard was perhaps the best of the very good Dutch light heavyweights in the late 70´s and throughout the 80´s. Standing At 6ft 4 and 191 cm, he was a a natural boxer with a good punch, good jab and of course with an excellent reach.
Blanchard began his career as a light middleweight and went 61-3 in the amateurs winning two national titles. In 1979 he choose between the 1980 Olympics and turning pro.
"I made mistake there, says the now 61-year old, who is a personal trainer in Amsterdam. I was training in Philadelphia and got an offer from Lou Duva of Main Events. But I thought the money was too small and returned home where I got a better offer but didn´t realize the problems down the road with getting big money fights with the Netherlands as the base," Blanchard said.
The man Alex signed with was the Dutch Mr Boxing, Henk Ruhling, a legend already in his day who worked all over Europe. Ruhling also promoted the EBU champ at the time in Rudi Koopmans, a tough veteran also from the Netherlands, and the build up to a Dutch mega-fight began..
In 1982 the Dutch Fight of the Century took place at a sold out (8000 spectators) Ahoy Sport Palace in Rotterdam.
"I was 21-0 at the time but at no time had I been forced to push myself," says Alex. "And that was the difference. It was also my first big fight and the pressure got to me. I lost 2 kg (4 lbs) during my walk to the ring!"
Blanchard did well but Koopmans, strong and experienced, won on a stoppage in the eighth round fighting with bad a cut. For the fight he was trained by none other than the legendary (part of it for the wrong reasons) former WBC and EBU champ Eckhard Dagge.
A rematch was a must and it was almost made but the champion first had to take care of a defence against Frenchman Ricard Caramanolis in France - a fight that he lost and then retired.
Blanchard then won the EBU title by knocking out Caramanolis in the sixth round. There were some talks of a world title fight against Michael Spinks with Curacao in the West Indies as location but again the Dutch market was too weak financially.
"Here it´s mainly about football (soccer)," comments Blanchard.
Instead promoter Ruhling made a mistake and opted for a fight for the newly created WAA title and a big scandal took place when Jerry Reddick, a/k/a Mac Truck, fell over in the second round in front of a packed house at the Jaap Eden Hal in Amsterdam on a blistering cold night early 1985. There was an investigation and most of the blame landed on Canadian agent Jimmy Johnstone, who was said to have short-changed promoter Ruhling, in a day before internet and boxrec. The title was never defended and now three consecutive draws followed. Two were for the EBU title and most had Alex winning over Ricard Caramanolis in a rematch and over future world champ Dennis Andries in London but the judges came up with a draw.
The third fight, a non-title encounter against Finland´s Tarmo Uusivirta, was a different story.
"He was the better man that night," concedes Blanchard, who also beat Brit Tom Collins in 86. There was a second fight against Collins and this time with the title on the line and Collins won on a second round knockout in a big upset.
"I won the first fight clearly," says Blanchard. "And I underestimated him badly [in the rematch] but that´s boxing for you. A split second, one mistake and you are gone."
Alex then got a good payday in Helsinki, in again against Uusivirta, with the newly created (soon gone and not to be confused with today´s titles) IBF Europe super middleweight title on the line. Blanchard won clearly it seemed but it was also ruled as a draw. A so called tune up followed and it went badly wrong with American puncher Tony Harrison winning on second round TKO. It took almost two years and five wins to get another shot at a title and this time it was against the young German Graciano Rocchigiani, who was outboxed early but walked through fire fighting with one eye closed and stopped Blanchard in the ninth to retain the EBU title.
"He was incredible strong, his body was like a rock and at the end he broke through and stopped me," Blanchard said.
That proved to be the final fight of a long career.
"It was a too long way back, I just didn´t have it in me anymore and I retired and stored my boxing stuff and didn´t look at it for ten years," says Blanchard.
There was talks of a rematch against Koopmans much later in what would have been the battle of the Grandfathers and it made some headlines in the Dutch press but financially it never came together.
Blanchard´s record is 40-4-4 and he is currently working on a book on his life. Check out alexblanchard.nl for more info.
Special thanks to Rinze Van Den Meer for providing information and of course to Mr. Blanchard, who like the rest of the Netherlands is currently in a lockdown due to Covid-19.