Wilfried Sauerland

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wilfried Sauerland (2010)

Wilfried Sauerland (born February 29, 1940 in Wuppertal ) is a German boxing promoter and founder of the Sauerland Event boxing stable of the same name .

Life

Sauerland was born in Wuppertal as the son of a carpenter . His passion for boxing was awakened as a child when his father took him to professional and amateur boxing matches that took place in Dortmund's Westfalenhalle and in Wuppertal. Sauerland completed a commercial apprenticeship and went to South Africa in 1962 , where he worked for the Bosch company . From 1968 he worked in Algeria and Tunisia and from 1970 for a mechanical engineering company in Zambia . He went into business for himself and, according to his own account, carried out "mixed financing projects" in the textile and fertilizer industries, before he specialized in the sale of beverage and brewery equipment in African countries and thus earned millions, according to Spiegel . In Zambia, Sauerland was involved as a sponsor in football. At the request of representatives of the Zambian government, Sauerland took on the Zambian boxer Lottie Mwale as a manager from the second half of the 1970s. Mwale later played world championship fights. The first boxing event carried out by Sauerland was on September 30, 1978 in Lusaka , which was attended by 70,000 spectators. He looked after other boxers like John Mugabi from Uganda , who fought against Marvin Hagler  for the middleweight championship in 1986 , but lost. Sauerland described this fight as the first high point of his activity as a boxing promoter.

In Germany, Sauerland was the manager of René Weller from 1980 , who ensured full halls and in March 1984 in front of 7,500 spectators in Frankfurt am Main became European lightweight champion. Even Manfred Jassmann and the brothers Ralf Rocchigiani and Graciano Rocchigiani belonged in Germany to the boxers who Sauerland supervised. Graciano Rocchigiani became his first world champion in 1988 when he defeated the American Vincent Boulware in the Düsseldorf Philipshalle, which had a crowd of 6,000 , and thus won the super middleweight title . Sauerland's company initially worked from Cologne and London , later it was based in Berlin .

Jean-Marcel Nartz , long-time technical director at the Sauerland boxing stable and later at competitor Universum , said in 2009 that Sauerland and Kohl had "saved German professional boxing from extinction in the 1980s". According to his own statement, Sauerland insisted on holding the boxing events "in large arenas and stadiums" instead of "in small and smoky halls". In January 1989, Der Spiegel wrote about Sauerland that it was initially "rather ridiculed" in the boxing business, "because it seems to work unusually cleanly in a dazzling industry". He has "so risen to the only German boxing stable owner of rank", judged the mirror . Sauerland said of himself that he was an outsider in the industry. The newspaper Die Welt called him "Herr [n] Sauerland from Sauberland", Graciano Rocchigiani described him as "slick". “You can't argue with Sauerland. [...] Nevertheless, Sauerland is also one of the biggest in Germany for me, "said Rocchigiani about his former manager.

In 1990, Sauerland signed a contract with Henry Maske , who was also being courted by his boxing promoter competitor Klaus-Peter Kohl and another company. Thanks to Maske (from March 1993 IBF light heavyweight world champion) and later also thanks to Axel Schulz , Sauerland-based company ( Sauerland Event GmbH ) played a key role in promoting professional boxing in Germany. Together with the Universum boxing stable of its competitor Kohl, Sauerland determined the market in Germany in the 1990s and 2000s. Sauerland had signed a contract with the television broadcaster RTL , which achieved high market shares and advertising revenues by broadcasting the fights of the Sauerland boxer mask and Schulz. RTL also ensured the heyday of German professional boxing in the 1990s, "thanks to a targeted heroization" of the Sauerland fighters, which the Sauerland boxing stable itself referred to as the "golden nineties". “Sauerland, Nartz and RTL had made boxing a social event,” said Der Tagesspiegel in 2002. With Sven Ottke , Markus Beyer , Arthur Abraham and others, Sauerland later looked after other German world champions. In December 2005, Nikolai Walujew , a Sauerland boxer, won a world heavyweight title for the first time, which Wilfried Sauerland later counted to the highlights of his career as a promoter.

In 2010 Wilfried Sauerland was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame . Sauerland's boxing stable has various branches: Frankfurt (Oder) under Manfred Wolke and Rudi Fink (2003), Cologne under Ulli Wegner (1996-2004) and Berlin under Ulli Wegner, since 2004. His sons Kalle Sauerland and Nisse Sauerland are also active as sports promoters and increasingly took over the business of Sauerland Event GmbH. In the summer of 2018, Wilfried Sauerland returned and from then on took care of the boxing stable's Germany business after he had retired around five years earlier.

Sauerland has residences in Cape Town in South Africa and in Friborg in Switzerland .

Sauerland boxer

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c http://www.wuppertal-barmen.de/wp-content/uploads/barmen_42_BarmerKopf_SauerlandWilfried_20100227WR.pdf
  2. ↑ a b Wilfried Sauerland. Retrieved September 26, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b c Helmut Kuhn: Wilfried Sauerland: Lord of the Rings . In: The time . January 5, 2011, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed September 26, 2019]).
  4. ^ A b Hans-Joachim Noack: "Man on the ground - jutet Jefühl" . In: Spiegel Online . tape 4 , January 23, 1989 ( spiegel.de [accessed September 26, 2019]).
  5. ↑ a b c Wilfried Sauerland on His Hall of Fame Induction. Retrieved September 26, 2019 (American English).
  6. ↑ a b c d boxing.com - Team Sauerland - history and future. In: Home of TEAM SAUERLAND. Retrieved September 26, 2019 (German).
  7. ↑ BoxRec: John Mugabi. Retrieved September 26, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Alex Raack: Boxer René Weller turns 65: The golden boy . In: Spiegel Online . November 21, 2018 ( spiegel.de [accessed September 26, 2019]).
  9. ↑ https://www.abendblatt.de/archive/1984/pdf/19840310.pdf/ASV_HAB_19840310_HA_009.pdf
  10. ↑ https://www.abendblatt.de/archive/1988/pdf/19880314.pdf/ASV_HAB_19880314_HA_017.pdf
  11. ↑ ThB: SCHATTENBLICK. Retrieved September 26, 2019 .
  12. ↑ WORLD: Permit, Boxmanager Sauerland, Mr. Seriös from Sauberland . September 22, 1999 ( welt.de [accessed September 26, 2019]).
  13. ^ Gunnar Meinhardt : Ready to rumble: Boxboom Germany. Gunnar Meinhardt in conversation with the stars . New Life, 2013.
  14. ↑ Henry Maske in conversation: "Everyone sells in some way" . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed September 26, 2019]).
  15. ↑ BoxRec: Henry Maske. Retrieved September 26, 2019 .
  16. ↑ VDS News | Messages | VDS - Association of German Sports Journalists. Retrieved September 26, 2019 .
  17. ^ The television cemetery: At the zenith of private television - quota meter. Retrieved September 26, 2019 .
  18. ↑ Changing sides at the boxing ring. In: Der Tagesspiegel. Retrieved September 26, 2019 .
  19. ↑ Boxing: Arthur Abraham finally wants to become famous . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed September 26, 2019]).
  20. ↑ World Championship in the heavyweight division: Valuev takes Ruiz's belt off . In: Spiegel Online . December 18, 2005 ( spiegel.de [accessed September 27, 2019]).
  21. ↑ The three greatest highlights by Wilfried Sauerland. Retrieved September 27, 2019 .
  22. ↑ Björn Jensen: Wilfried Sauerland returns and runs boxing shops. July 11, 2018, accessed on September 27, 2019 (German).
  23. ↑ Gunnar Meinhardt: Boxing: How Germany's last big boxing stable Sauerland fights for survival . July 14, 2018 ( welt.de [accessed September 27, 2019]).
  24. ↑ Franko Koitzsch: Professional boxing: Wilfried Sauerland will be 65. February 28, 2005, accessed on September 26, 2019 (German).
personal data
SURNAME Sauerland, Wilfried
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German boxing promoter
DATE OF BIRTH February 29, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Wuppertal