Sauerland event

Sauerland Event (officially Sauerland Event GmbH) is a boxing stable founded by Wilfried Sauerland in Berlin , which became the largest boxing organizer in Germany. In addition to the company's founder, his sons Kalle Sauerland and Nisse Sauerland are also among the company's leaders.

Company history

According to Wilfried Sauerland, members of the Zambian government approached him in 1978 with the request to use his contacts to send local boxers overseas. He organized his first boxing event on September 30, 1978 in Zambia's capital Lusaka . One of his first boxers was Lottie Mwale , whom he led to the top of the WBC rankings, but who lost his world title fight. Its first event in Germany took place in 1980. Also noticed was John Mugabi , silver medalist at the Moscow Olympics. He won all of his seven fights in Germany and also went to the USA. 1986 saw his first world title fight against Marvin Hagler , which he lost; by then Mugabi had a record of 26 knockout successes in 26 fights.

From 1980, Sauerland looked after René Weller , who became European lightweight champion in March 1984. Even Manfred Jassmann (light heavyweight) from Korbach belonged to Sauerland proteges. When he fought for the European championship title in Frankfurt in July 1983 (and was defeated), the public broadcasters had only offered DM 8,000 for the broadcasting rights. Sauerland refused this offer. The professional boxing in Germany at that time was described as a "thinned out scene", Sauerland, as the organizer, tried to help this scene to survive.

In 1990, Sauerland, who shortly before had been considering leaving the boxing business, signed Henry Maske and trainer Manfred Wolke  , thus outpacing his competitor Klaus-Peter Kohl  , who was also connected to the GDR boxer and his trainer. With Axel Schulz , Sauerland brought in another top GDR boxer, and the brothers Torsten May and Rüdiger May also joined. “The boxers from the east saved boxing in Germany,” Wilfried Sauerland said later. With the mask as the driving force, professional boxing experienced a significant boom in Germany, to which Sauerland's collaboration with the television station RTL also made a major contribution. RTL operated a "targeted heroization" of the boxers, broadcast the fights with great effort and spectacle and, together with Sauerland, made a significant contribution to "pulling the sport out of the red light milieu and releasing it from its previous dirty and pub image". Sauerland and the boxing stable Universum of its competitor Kohl dominated the boxing business in Germany in the 1990s and 2000s.

The big fights of Sauerland boxers in the heyday of German professional boxing included the first World Cup fight by Maske in 1993, the two duels between Mask and Graciano Rocchigiani in 1995, the controversial defeat of Schulz 'against George Foreman in 1995 and Schulz' other World Cup Fights against Francois Botha (December 1995) and Michael Moorer.

After the 1996 Summer Olympics , the Sauerland boxing stable signed Ulli Wegner  as a trainer, who made Sven Ottke , Markus Beyer , Marco Huck and Arthur Abraham world champions in the following years . Before moving from the amateur camp to Sauerland, Wegner had also had contact with competitor Universum. In March 2003, Ottke became the second German to hold the World Cup title from two associations. In March 2004, the super middleweight resigned from Berlin and thus ended his professional career without defeat. An important employee of Sauerland was Jean-Marcel Nartz as the technical manager, who was described as "the real engine" of Sauerland's boxing business. Nartz moved from Sauerland to Universum in 2002. At the beginning of 2004, the Sauerland boxing stable left the Bund Deutscher Berufsboxer (BDB) and joined the Austrian federation. Sauerland criticized the BDB for not having distanced itself sufficiently from Vice President Hans Högner, who had been accused of making racist and anti-Semitic statements. Sauerland feared "permanent damage to the image of our sport", which they would not support. In December 2005, the Russian Nikolai Walujew became the first boxer from the Sauerland stable to become heavyweight world champion.

Over the years, the Sauerland boxing stable, which initially ran its business from Cologne and London and moved to Berlin in 2003, set up branches in Hamburg, Copenhagen, Stockholm and New York. The company became "one of the largest and most successful boxing stables in Europe".

From December 2001 fights of Sauerland boxers were regularly broadcast on ARD , after the contract was not extended, the private broadcaster Sat.1 became the boxing stable's new television partner in October 2014 . Wilfried Sauerland was increasingly handing over the business to his sons Kalle and Nisse and was barely active, especially from 2013 onwards. In 2015, Wilfried Sauerland said that there are now just as many boxing events in Scandinavia as in Germany. From autumn 2017, Kalle Sauerland devoted himself primarily to the tournament series “ World Boxing Super Series ” and from then on was no longer involved in the German boxing stable business. His brother Nisse mainly takes care of the business in Scandinavia and England. Kalle Sauerland emphasized the German roots of the company in March 2017, but at the same time announced changes and also announced that the boxing stable would become more international. “We stand for results. And if it doesn't go that way, you have to change things. There are changes with us: layoffs, people leave, new ones come, new paths. We are looking for the way forward [...] We have to slowly rebuild ourselves. And we're well positioned here, we're not finished yet. We're going to make even more changes here, we're going to adapt more internationally, ”he said.

In July 2018, Wilfried Sauerland announced that he would be getting more involved in business in Germany, which had suffered as a result of the increasingly international orientation. The company's founder persuaded Wegner to continue after his contract had expired. At this point in time, the boxing stable had only one world champion, the super middleweight Tyron Zeuge . Sauerland's boxing empire was shaken, wrote the newspaper Die Welt in July 2018. In 2018, after the Sat1 contract expired, the company entered into a collaboration with Sport1 , Wilfried Sauerland admitted late payments in August 2018, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported under the heading "The fat years at Sauerland are over" about the boxing stable, "which arrives in the present with great difficulty". In the summer of 2019, the boxing stable announced that it would close its training hall near the Berlin Olympic Stadium at the end of 2019 , as the annual costs in the six-figure range would no longer be used. According to Kalle Sauerland, this also took into account the development that boxers now “train individually, they have their own team around them and choose the location of their training facility themselves”. At the end of September 2019, Wegner was given the written notice of termination on December 31, 2019. Wegner had rejected the offer to look after the boxers on a freelance basis with a grant from Sauerland. According to the Bild newspaper, Wilfried Sauerland emphasized : “But we had discussed the matter with Ulli Wegner a long time beforehand.” Sauerland cited financial reasons as the reason for the termination (“We just can't afford it anymore, so much money for so few boxers to spend for the trainer "). Wegner himself had said a few weeks before receiving the notice that he was afraid of "parting in evil" because it was gradually building up. The trainer then clearly criticized the termination process. In November 2019, Kalle Sauerland emphasized that the boxing stable would no longer work with permanently employed, but with freelance trainers. In the same month he rejected reports of an imminent end to the boxing stable and emphasized that large events would soon be held again.

Sauerland boxer

Former

Current

Henry Akinwande (* 1965), WBO heavyweight champion Markus Beyer (1971–2018), three-time WBC super middleweight champion Thomas Classen (* 1962), German heavyweight champion, 1985 Danilo Häußler (* 1975), EBU European champion in super middleweight Timo Hoffmann (* 1974), WBO and IBF Intercontinental Heavyweight Champion Robert Helenius (* 1984), Finland, multiple EBU European Champion and WBO / WBA Intercontinental Heavyweight Champion Manfred Jassmann (* 1952), German light heavyweight and heavyweight champion Edmund Gerber (* 1988), Germany, German heavyweight champion Henry Maske (* 1964), IBF light heavyweight champion Željko Mavrović (* 1969), EBU European heavyweight champion Yoan Hernández (* 1984), Cuba, IBF world cruiserweight champion Marco Huck (* 1984), Germany, WBO world cruiserweight champion Torsten May (* 1969), EBU European cruiserweight champion Rüdiger May (* 1974), German cruiserweight champion Karo Murat (* 1983), Germany, EBU European light heavyweight champion Eduard Gutknecht (* 1982), Germany, EBU European light heavyweight champion Robert Woge (* 1984), Germany, IBF Intercontinental Light Heavyweight Champion Mikkel Kessler (* 1979), Denmark, WBA / WBC world champion in super middleweight John Mugabi (* 1960), WBC light middleweight champion Dominik Britsch (* 1987), Germany, IBF Intercontinental Middleweight Champion Chisanda Mutti , Commonwealth Cruiserweight Champion Lotti Mwale , Commonwealth and African Light Heavyweight Champion Oktay Urkal (* 1970), EBU European champion in light welter and welterweight Sven Ottke (* 1967), IBF super middleweight world champion Alexander Powetkin (* 1979), Russia, heavyweight Axel Schulz (* 1968), German heavyweight champion Enrico Kölling (* 1990), Germany, German light heavyweight champion Michel Trabant (* 1978), EBU European welterweight champion Pierre Vogel (* 1978), German junior light heavyweight champion Nikolai Valujew (* 1973), WBA heavyweight champion René Weller (* 1953), two-time EBU European lightweight champion

Kubrat Pulew (* 1981), Bulgaria, heavyweight Filip Hrgovic , Croatia, heavyweight Kem Ljungquist , Denmark, heavyweight Albon Pervizaj , Germany, heavyweight Burak Sahin , Germany, heavyweight Otto Wallin (* 1990), Sweden, heavyweight Michael Wallisch (* 1985), Germany, heavyweight Noel Gevor (* 1990), Germany, cruiserweight Kai Robin Havnaa , Norway, cruiserweight Tomi Honka , Finland, cruiserweight Mikael Lawal , Nigeria, cruiserweight Artur Mann (* 1990), Germany, cruiserweight Micki Nielsen (* 1993), Denmark, cruiserweight Jürgen Brähmer (* 1978), Germany, light heavyweight Leon Bunn (* 1992), Germany, light heavyweight Tim-Robin Lihaug , Norway, light heavyweight Erik Skoglund (* 1991), Sweden, light heavyweight Vincent Feigenbutz (* 1995), Germany, super middleweight Arthur Abraham (* 1980), Germany, super middleweight Tyron Zeuge (* 1992), Germany, super middleweight Oscar Ahlin , Sweden, super middleweight Leon Bauer (* 1998), Germany, super middleweight George Groves (Boxer) (b.1988), Great Britain, super middleweight Patrick Nielsen (* 1991), Denmark, super middleweight Zach Parker (* 1994), Great Britain, super middleweight Denis Radovan (* 1992), Germany, super middleweight Marcos Nader (* 1990), Austria, middleweight Jack Culcay-Keth (* 1985), Germany, light middleweight Cecilia Brækhus (* 1981), Norway, welterweight

Web links

• Website of the Sauerland Event GmbH
• A short portrait of Wilfried Sauerland

Individual evidence

1. ^ Wilfried Sauerland. Retrieved September 26, 2019 . 
2. ↑ BoxRec: John Mugabi. Retrieved September 26, 2019 . 
3. ↑ Alex Raack: Boxer René Weller turns 65: The golden boy. In: Spiegel Online. November 21, 2018 - accessed September 26, 2019
4. ↑ https://www.abendblatt.de/archive/1984/pdf/19840310.pdf/ASV_HAB_19840310_HA_009.pdf
5. ↑ https://www.abendblatt.de/archive/1983/pdf/19830711.pdf/ASV_HAB_19830711_HA_010.pdf
6. ↑ ^{a b} Bertram Job: Instructions for use for boxing . Piper Paperback, 2015, ISBN 978-3-492-27668-9 .
7. ↑ ^{a b} The way from Maske & Co to the top: Eastern athletes pulled boxes out of the crack on November 3, 2014 - accessed on September 26, 2019
8. ↑ Henry Maske in conversation: "Everyone sells in some way" ISSN 0174-4909 - accessed on September 26, 2019
9. ↑ Axel Schulz. December 9, 1995, accessed September 26, 2019 . 
10. ↑ ^{a b c} Beatings in private circles. Retrieved September 26, 2019 . 
11. ^ The television cemetery: At the zenith of private television - quota meter. Retrieved September 26, 2019 . 
12. ↑ Lutz Frühbrodt: From the niche into the limelight. May 13, 2008 - Retrieved September 26, 2019
13. ↑ ^{a b} https://www.abendblatt.de/archive/1993/pdf/19930322.pdf/ASV_HAB_19930322_HA_022.pdf
14. ↑ https://www.abendblatt.de/archive/1995/pdf/19950529.pdf/ASV_HAB_19950529_HA_019.pdf
15. ↑ ^{a b} https://www.abendblatt.de/archive/1995/pdf/19950424.pdf/ASV_HAB_19950424_HA_015.pdf
16. ↑ Video: Michael Moorer vs. Axel Schulz (Youtube) - accessed on July 22, 2020
17. ↑ ^{a b} Sport1.de: Boxing: Sauerland closes gym in Berlin - so it goes on for Ulli Wegner. Retrieved September 26, 2019 . 
18. ↑ ULI WEGNER ON HIS BEGINNING AS A TRAINER, SAUERLAND, SVEN OTTKE, MARKUS BEYER, ARTHUR ABRAHAM UVM. Retrieved September 26, 2019 . 
19. ↑ Double world champion Sven Ottke is living his dream. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. March 17, 2003, accessed September 26, 2019 . 
20. ^ Hans-Joachim Leyenberg, Magdeburg: Boxing: A strong finish. ISSN 0174-4909 - accessed September 26, 2019
21. ↑ Changing sides at the boxing ring. Retrieved September 26, 2019 . 
22. ↑ Sauerland leaves BDB. January 12, 2004, accessed on September 26, 2019 (German). 
23. ↑ World Championships in the heavyweight division: Valujew takes Ruiz's belt off In: Spiegel Online. December 18, 2005 - accessed September 27, 2019
24. ↑ The three greatest highlights by Wilfried Sauerland. Retrieved September 27, 2019 . 
25. ↑ Kasten.com - Team Sauerland - history and future. In: Home of TEAM SAUERLAND. Retrieved September 26, 2019 (German). 
26. ↑ ^{a b} Björn Jensen: Trainer Wegner: “I'm not available for mediocre people”. June 28, 2018, accessed on September 26, 2019 (German). 
27. ↑ ^{a b} Gunnar Meinhardt : Boxing: How Germany's last big boxing stable Sauerland fights for survival. July 14, 2018 - accessed September 26, 2019
28. ^ Boxing Wilfried Sauerland about his sons. Retrieved October 22, 2019 (German). 
29. ↑ Future Boxing in Germany Comment Kalle Sauerland. Retrieved September 26, 2019 . 
30. ↑ Björn Jensen: Wilfried Sauerland returns and runs boxing shops. July 11, 2018, accessed on September 26, 2019 (German). 
31. ^ ^{A b} Benedikt Warmbrunn: Boxing: Wilfried Sauerland is fighting for his life's work. Retrieved September 26, 2019 . 
32. ↑ ^{a b c} Björn Jensen: "Sauerland is still number one". November 13, 2019, accessed on November 22, 2019 (German). 
33. ^ Süddeutsche Zeitung: Sauerland boxing stable closes training center. Retrieved September 26, 2019 . 
34. ↑ Coach receives termination: Sauerland terminates cult coach Wegner. In: bild.de. Retrieved October 21, 2019 . 
35. ↑ ULI WEGNER ON HIS BEGINNING AS A TRAINER, SAUERLAND, SVEN OTTKE, MARKUS BEYER, ARTHUR ABRAHAM UVM. Retrieved October 21, 2019 . 
36. ↑ Karin Bühler: Background to the termination of Ulli Wegner: Boxing stable Sauerland before the end of Sport1. October 11, 2019, accessed October 21, 2019 . 
37. ↑ Boxing - Kalle Sauerland sees Boxstall in a good position: "We want to do big events again soon". In: ran.de. October 22, 2019, accessed November 23, 2019 .