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Marcel Thil

Marcel Thil
Marcel Thil f1.highres.jpg
Statistics
Real name Marcel Thil
Rated at Middleweight
Nationality France French
Born 25 May 1904
Saint-Dizier, France
Died 14 August 1968(1968-08-14) (aged 64)
Stance Orthodox
Boxing record
Total fights 148
Wins 113
Wins by KO 54
Losses 22
Draws 13
No contests 0

Marcel Thil (25 May 1904 – 14 August 1968) was a French boxer and middleweight world champion. Statistical boxing website BoxRec rates Thil as the best French boxer ever across all weight divisions.

Thil was born in Saint-Dizier, a commune in the Haute-Marne department in north-eastern France. He started boxing at a very young age and turned professional at the age of 16. Thil was a journeyman boxer for a number of years but as he gained experience and matured to full adult strength, he developed power in both hands and began to win regularly by knockout (KO).

Thil won the French middleweight boxing championship in 1928 and captured the Europe title the following year. After losing his European championship in 1930, Thil won his next 15 fights and then defeated Gorilla Jones by a controversial 11th-round disqualification to capture the National Boxing Association (NBA) world middleweight championship and the vacant International Boxing Union (IBU) world middleweight championship on June 11, 1932 in Paris, France. With his championship victory, Thil became the toast of Paris. He was a major celebrity and a good friend of celebrated actor Jean Gabin.

Thil successfully defended the title on July 4, 1932 with a 15-round unanimous decision against Len Harvey, but he then went more than a year without defending the title. Thil was stripped by the NBA for failing to make a title defense by August 15, 1933, but he remained the IBU champion.

In addition to defending the IBU middleweight championship, Thil moved up a weight class to win the European light-heavyweight title in 1934. He would successfully defend the title once.


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