Ulli Wegner is also fighting at 80
The cult trainer now torturing himself
04/26/2022, 06:49 am
Ulli Wegner says about himself: “I am a determiner!” But since his femoral neck fracture, the cult boxing coach has been the one who’s been put under pressure. Also from former protégés who still accompany him today. On his 80th birthday, however, they have to do without him.
Even the thought horrifies Ulli Wegner. “Singing together? Me and Frank Schöbel?” calls the former boxing trainer with the creaking voice and struggles to keep his composure. “For God’s sake. Not with me.” The duet would have been possible. The world champion creator and the former GDR hit bard, whose records also sold in the West, have been together in a rehabilitation clinic on the outskirts of Berlin for the past few weeks. Wegner because of a femoral neck fracture, Schöbel after knee surgery. “But I had the better suite,” says Wegner proudly, then adds soothingly: “Frank and I know each other well. We told each other stories and laughed a lot. We didn’t get bored.”
Schöbel will be 80 in December, Wegner this Tuesday. But there is no celebration. “How? I can only walk on crutches,” complains the Szczecin native, who celebrated his 70th birthday with 600 people. Perhaps he will travel to Usedom on the Baltic Sea. Wegner: “Let’s see what’s up.”
The mishap happened on New Year’s Eve. Since then he has had to struggle. “I had to learn to walk again,” says the cult trainer, describing the consequences of the complicated fracture in his right leg. It had happened to his left leg two years earlier. “As you get older, you have to take it easy,” he sighs. “But I’m in good shape. The rehab did me good. I lost a bit of weight.”
“He needs pressure”
Wegner’s former protégé Sven Ottke worries about his coach. “I call him regularly. Everyone needs encouragement,” says the former world champion. The 54-year-old also reaches into Wegner’s bag of tricks. “I’ll do it like he did with us back then. He needs pressure,” reveals the former IBF and WBA super middleweight champion and is roguishly happy.
Wegner, who actually wanted to be a footballer, is an institution in German boxing. In addition to Ottke, he has made Markus Beyer, Arthur Abraham, Marco Huck and Yoan Pablo Hernandez world champions. The qualified GDR sports teacher was Germany’s outstanding boxing trainer alongside Fritz Sdunek, who died in 2014 and who looked after Dariusz Michalczewski and the Klitschko brothers. First national coach for the amateurs, then head coach for the Sauerland professionals. His rewards are world championship titles, the Federal Cross of Merit, the Goldene Henne, honorary citizenship of Gera and his name at the Usedom sports hall.
As a coach, Wegner was a rascal and the undisputed boss. He didn’t tolerate contradiction. “I know what’s good for the boys,” is his maxim. “No one fools me.” If you wanted to be world champion, you had to shut up. “There is no room for democracy in competitive sport. I am the one who decides,” emphasizes the trained tractor and agricultural machinery mechanic. Dictator and general, that’s why Wegner was called. “Maybe I’m very uncomfortable,” he says. “But I don’t feel that way.”
Abraham fights, criminal charges for Wegner
Neither did his boxers. “He knew everyone inside out. Sometimes it was a carrot, sometimes a stick. Ulli is a psychologist,” says Ottke. Wegner didn’t quite see through him himself. Because when Ottke ended his career in the ring in March 2004 after his 22nd World Championship victory, Wegner was shocked. When Ottke gave him a BMW convertible Z4 as a thank you, tears ran down his face. “And everyone always said Svenni was stingy. You think so!”
With Arthur Abraham, technically limited but equipped with tremendous power, the trainer had fought out many a bouquet. “I can also deal with difficult guys,” says Wegner. Abraham never wanted to torment himself in battle, he let himself hang from time to time.
Then Wegner, the western fan, was in top form. “Man Arthur, you are an Indian! A warrior! You come from a proud people. What should your compatriots think?” he snapped at the native Armenians during the break in the ring. The stitch pulled. Abraham felt seized by the honor and started culling. He even managed to defend his world title with a broken jaw. Wegner filed criminal charges for assault. “Today Arthur is a millionaire and has three hotels,” says the former coach. “I guess not everything I did was wrong.” After a pause, he quietly adds: “I’m satisfied with my life.”