Isidoro Gaztañaga, known by the nickname 'Ibarra Pile Driver', was a remarkable character during boxing's golden age, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. Throughout his career, he constantly battled the shadow of Paulino Uzcudun, his compatriot and sporting father figure, whom he idolized and later sought to dethrone.
Both boxers, Gaztañaga and Uzcudun, were born in early May in farmhouses in Gipuzkoa, one in Errezil and the other in Ibarra, barely 15 kilometers apart. Both started their careers at the Casalonga gym in Donostia's Gros neighborhood, and in 1925 they met again at the famous Stade Anastasie in Paris. Isidoro was introduced to the French public as 'Paulino II', leveraging the reputation Uzcudun already enjoyed. Both saw their dreams dashed by the Italian Primo Carnera, who defeated them between October 1933 and March 1936.
“"The best or the worst boxer in the world, depending on the mood with which he steps into the ring."
Upon arriving in Paris in 1925, Gaztañaga impressed with his exceptional qualities. Ten years later, he ranked eighth among the greatest knockout artists of all time, with 59 KO victories, 15 of them in the first round. He combined his formidable punching power with sobriety and refinement, valuing the quality of the spectacle over the outcome. According to his biographer Juan Osés, «if someone attacked him displaying poor style, Isidoro wanted to get out of the ring as soon as possible and couldn't hide it, because he certainly disliked crude fighters».
At the peak of his career, at 26 years old, at New York's Stadium Queensboro, 'Izzy', a diminutive given to him in the United States, astonished the world by knocking out Charley Retzlaff, 'The Duluth Dynamite', in less than three minutes. This feat catapulted him into the elite of heavyweights. However, Gaztañaga lacked discipline and consistency, qualities that Uzcudun possessed in abundance. Manager François Descamps described him as «the best or the worst boxer in the world, depending on the mood with which he steps into the ring».
Gaztañaga, informal and inconsistent, sometimes delivered exquisite boxing lessons and at other times succumbed to the most painful mediocrity. In his later years, the Italian Primo Carnera thwarted his ambitions just before the outbreak of the Civil War. In March 1944, in an Argentine pulquería, he became involved in a fight and was shot three times. He died at 37 years old, with an end reminiscent of a tango.
