Klaus-Peter Kohl

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Klaus-Peter Kohl (born May 4, 1944 ) is a German boxing promoter and entrepreneur .

Life

Klaus-Peter Kohl grew up with two siblings in Hamburg . He trained as a freight forwarder. However, he only worked briefly in his father's trucking company. Kohl had to end his career as a boxer quickly due to poor eyesight. Instead, he started his own business in the catering business by leasing takeaways. He became the owner of fast food restaurants and amusement arcades, including in Hamburg Central Station . He also built up the largest private beverage delivery service in Germany and got into the real estate business.

At boxing events he was initially involved as a timekeeper, the sport was initially "more of a passion than business," wrote the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) in 2009 about Kohl. On February 24, 1984, he held his first professional boxing event in the Alsterdorf sports hall with fighters such as Erwin Heiber , Jean-André Emmerich , Manfred Jassmann , Graciano and Ralf Rocchigiani , with which he lost 150,000 Deutschmarks. Of the roughly 2,000 spectators in the hall, three quarters had free tickets. The official organizer, however, was not Kohl, but his brother-in-law, who had the necessary license. In the same year, Universum Box-Promotion was founded . Kohl was president of the Bund Deutscher Berufsboxer from 1984 to 1989 and vice-president of the European Boxing Union from 1987 to 1990. His functions as a functionary would have ensured acceptance in the boxing scene: "They knew me and I knew the others," said Kohl in 2009. At the end of June 1988, Kohl hosted the European championship match in the light middleweight division between Heiber and French René Jacquot in the sports hall in Wandsbek in Hamburg which the latter won. According to Hamburger Abendblatt , at the event, at a cost of 245,000 DM, Kohl only made income of around 150,000 DM.

As a boxing manager, Kohl became a competitor to Wilfried Sauerland in Germany , but initially still worked with him when they jointly organized one of Henry Maske 's first fights in 1990 in Hamburg . Jean-Marcel Nartz , who first worked for Sauerland and then for Kohl, said that the two promoters had "saved German professional boxing from extinction in the 1980s". The NZZ described the relationship between Kohl and Sauerland as "permanent competition accompanied by mutual failures", as a result of which both rivals had screwed their way up.

As his breakthrough as boxing manager Kohl described Markus Bott's win of the world title in cruiserweight in February 1993. Kohl's company initially worked with the pay TV channel Premiere and the DSF , which broadcast the fights of the Universum boxers. Later there were also broadcasts on Eurosport and Pro7 . Kohl signed boxers such as Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko , Dariusz Michalczewski , Daisy Lang , Regina Halmich , Felix Sturm , Zsolt Erdei , Artur Grigoryan and Jürgen Brähmer . On the occasion of the Klitschko brothers' first professional fights, which they fought at Universum in 1996, Kohl made the prediction: "In two to three years we will have a boxing stable that is unparalleled in the world." His collaboration with the Klitschkos ended because of different views About the contract periods in disagreement and culminated in a lawsuit that lasted for years. One of Kohl's most important and successful boxers was Michalczewski, who had been world champion from 1994 onwards and in some cases held the world titles of three different associations. "We started very small together, now we're filling this great arena," said Kohl in October 2003 after Michalczewski's defeat to Julio Cesar Gonzalez in front of 15,000 spectators in the Hamburg Color-Line-Arena .

In 1997, Kohl was involved in a serious traffic accident: on the way back from an evening fight in Berlin, his car was rammed by another car in the Hamburg district of Farmsen , and Kohl's car was thrown into a front yard. Kohl suffered a fourfold pelvic fracture and another 22 broken bones. He was in an artificial coma for nine days and had to stay in the hospital for three weeks. He has a daughter with his wife Ute, Gaby Kohl. She in turn is married to Dietmar Poszwa , the former managing director of Spotlight Boxing .

In April 2003, American boxing journalists voted Kohl “Manager of the Year” because he had succeeded in being successful with many of his athletes across Europe and also in the USA. Kohl's collaboration with the WBO is attributed to their rise to a recognized world boxing association. In 2008 Kohl was awarded the honorary prize at the Hamburger Sportgala, in 2018 he was accepted into the International Hall of Fame of Boxing.

Universum's television contract with ZDF expired at the end of July 2010 . Kohl emphasized on July 31, 2010: "Economically, we are the healthiest boxing company in Germany" and gave the prediction: "Universe is not broke and never will be, I'll take care of that". In July 2011 Kohl sold the Universum boxing stable to Waldemar Kluch and announced at the end of September 2011 that he had given up the management of the Universum boxing stable, but initially remained active as a consultant. Since the payment of the purchase price for the boxing stable was delayed for months, Kohl initially granted the new owner Kluch a respite before taking legal action against Kluch. Kohl, who in retrospect regretted not having given up the boxing stable in summer 2010 after the end of the ZDF contract, said in mid-November 2012 that the boxing chapter was closed for him. In his work as a promoter Kohl carried out almost 300 boxing events with a total of more than 2100 fights (including more than 250 title fights). The boxing stable Universum filed for bankruptcy in November 2012 and was subsequently closed. Even when he retired, Kohl continued to work as an entrepreneur in the catering trade. In 2010, Kohl joined the Hamburg restaurant "Hofbräu Wirtshaus" as a partner with his son-in-law and business partner Dietmar Poszwa. In the following years further "Hofbräu Wirtshäuser" were added in Hamburg and Berlin. In 2018, Kohl and Poszwa took over the majority of the shares in the company, which in 2017 posted sales of 35.6 million euros. In 2016, Kohl and his business partners founded the butcher company "Heimat Bavaria Specialties" in Winsen . In July 2018 he told the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper that he could never have imagined a “retirement age”, he needed employment .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Bertram Job: 25 laps in forward gear | NZZ. Retrieved January 6, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Klaus-Peter Kohl. In: Munzinger Online / Sport - International Sports Archive. Munzinger-Archiv GmbH, accessed on September 25, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b ThB: SCHATTENBLICK. Retrieved September 23, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b c Kohl: "Above all, the athletes were important". Retrieved September 22, 2019 .
  5. ↑ https://www.abendblatt.de/archive/1988/pdf/19880630.pdf/ASV_HAB_19880630_HA_012.pdf
  6. ↑ a b Boxing: Legendary boxing stable universe attacks again. Retrieved September 23, 2019 .
  7. ↑ It's difficult for a lightweight. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. November 15, 1996, accessed September 23, 2019 .
  8. ↑ a b c Hartmut Scherzer: Klaus-Peter Kohl: The boxing universe collapses . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed September 22, 2019]).
  9. ↑ "King Arthur" - Lord of the Ring. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. November 18, 1996, accessed September 23, 2019 .
  10. ↑ WORLD: Boxing: Klitschkos win in court against Universum . November 6, 2009 ( welt.de [accessed September 23, 2019]).
  11. ↑ Stefan Reckziegel: "We also box against mask". In: Hamburger Abendblatt. September 12, 1994. Retrieved September 23, 2019 .
  12. ↑ Stefan Reckziegel: The tiger sets the big hit. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. June 14, 1997. Retrieved September 23, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Björn Jensen, Lutz Wagner: The tiger falls from the throne. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. October 20, 2003. Retrieved September 23, 2019 .
  14. ↑ https://www.abendblatt.de/archive/1997/pdf/19970325.pdf/ASV_HAB_19970325_HA_011.pdf
  15. ↑ https://www.mopo.de/1997-erwischte-es-kohl-selbst-zur-person-19980496?originalReferrer=https://www.google.com/
  16. ↑ a b Björn Jensen: Klaus-Peter Kohl: The man who made the Klitschkos big. July 13, 2018, accessed September 22, 2019 .
  17. ↑ Björn Jensen: Klaus-Peter Kohl: "Universe will never be broke". July 31, 2010, accessed on September 25, 2019 (German).
  18. ↑ Ex-Universum boss Klaus-Peter Kohl settles accounts with Waldemar Kluch. Retrieved September 24, 2019 .
  19. ↑ Björn Jensen: Klaus-Peter Kohl: "For me, the boxing chapter is closed" . November 14, 2012 ( welt.de [accessed September 24, 2019]).
  20. ↑ The 2018 Boxing Hall of Fame class. December 5, 2017. Retrieved September 25, 2019 (American English).
  21. ↑ Boxing: Universum files for bankruptcy . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed September 24, 2019]).
  22. ↑ Wolfgang Horch: The founder of the Hofbräus is getting out and has new plans. May 23, 2018, accessed on January 6, 2020 (German).
  23. ↑ Martina Kalus: Traditional Maibock tapping opens the strong beer season - B&L media. In: B&L media. April 5, 2019, accessed on January 6, 2020 (German).
personal data
SURNAME Kohl, Klaus-Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German businessman and boxing promoter
DATE OF BIRTH May 4, 1944