In the second part of the exclusive BOXSPORT interview, Felix Sturm talks about his greatest achievements and why mindset is the key to success.
Click here for the first part of the in-depth interview with Felix Sturm.
If you were to meet the young Adnan Catic today, who is just starting out in boxing in Leverkusen: What advice would you give him—and what would you warn him about?
Not a thing. I’d do everything exactly the same way I did it. I wouldn’t change a thing. I get asked this question a lot on podcasts and in interviews. At the end of the day, everyone has their own story. Everyone has to follow their own path and gain their own experiences. If someone asks me if I regret anything: No, I don’t regret a thing. If anything, I might regret that I didn’t have the people I have around me today much sooner. These are people who support me wholeheartedly, who are truly by my side, and who are genuinely happy for me.
Every young boxer should follow his own path. I have guys at the gym who ask me questions every day—about weight cutting, about experiences, about all kinds of things. Of course I give advice. But everyone has their own mind, their own personality, and everyone learns from different things.
If I can offer one piece of good advice, it’s this: Have someone by your side whom you trust—someone you know will keep things between the two of you. Someone who gives you well-meaning advice. That could be a parent, a family member, a very close friend, or a lawyer—someone who’s a little removed from the situation and can talk to you neutrally and objectively.
It’s like being in the ring. I might think something is good, but my coach says, “Do it this way or that way—it’ll work better.” You need people around you who don’t just pat you on the back when everything is going well. You need people who stay objective and give honest feedback.
You’ve worked with a lot of coaches. Is there a particular phrase or lesson that has stuck with you to this day?
Yes. My current coach, Salih Yildirim, told me, “Do it for yourself. Don’t do it for anyone else.” That was a lesson I took to heart for the first time so clearly after all these decades in the sport. Everything you do in sports, you do first and foremost for yourself. Family is a different matter. But when it comes to sports, you do it for yourself and for no one else.
Many athletes say that at some point, the body sets limits, but the mind wants to go even further. How was it for you: Did you have to convince your body—or rein in your mind?
That was a very deliberate decision on my part. At some point, it has to end. If we’re honest, I’ve been doing this for longer than most, and I’m still in excellent shape for my age. I often train shirtless because it gets extremely hot in the gym in the morning, and I can see for myself how I’m still improving. I’ve always been in good shape, in good form. I’m confident I can easily handle another four to six fights. But I’ve always said: I want to say goodbye to boxing on my own terms. And at some point, it has to be enough.
My son will turn 17 in October; my daughter is 11 and will turn 12 next year. They’re very aware of everything that’s going on, especially my son. When you’re always training, you sometimes get scrapes, you’re tired, and you’re in your own world. I usually eat alone because my family, of course, leads a completely normal life. Spaghetti Bolognese, pizza, burgers—things like that. I live by a schedule: training, meals, physical therapy, cold chamber. My day is planned completely differently from my family’s.
At some point, it’s enough. My wife has been through this with me for 21 years. My kids have been with me since day one. They’ve had to do without me a lot. At some point, you have to say: Thank you. It was a great time. Everything has a beginning, everything has an end. I had a great start, a fantastic career, and now I’m saying goodbye in my own way. After all those amateur fights, pro fights, and what feels like 100 million hours of sparring, I’ve simply had enough.
Has the time come to give something back to the family?
Definitely. Just family life. Just a quiet weekend for a change. It’s been ten weeks now—training every weekend. I have to sleep, eat, train, and recover. The kids get pushed to the back burner. If I’m lucky, I see my daughter for a few minutes in the morning and then again in the evening. On weekends, I have Sundays off, so I can do a little more, but to be honest, I often spend most of that time lying down because I need to fully recover.
My family are my heroes. My wife, my kids—they’ve put everything on hold for me. Completely. None of them has ever complained. In 21 years, my wife hasn’t whined or questioned anything even once. Not even now, when I said, “I’m going to fight one more time.”
After the fight against Benjamin Blindert, the question arose: Should I box again or not? I didn’t want to just say goodbye on social media. I wanted to have one more fight, go through training one more time, and experience that competitive feeling one more time. My wife just said, “Okay, all right, let’s do this one more time. If it goes well, then that’s it.” And yes: It really is the last fight. No matter what offer comes tomorrow, I’m not going to worry about it.
The fight against Oscar de la Hoya made you famous internationally, even though you lost. Can defeats sometimes mean more for a career than victories?
Everyone has to decide that for themselves. Everyone deals with defeat differently. For me, it wasn’t a defeat in that sense. For me, the fight was a success either way. I showed what I’m made of, what I’m capable of, and that I could compete at the world’s highest level even at a very young age. For many years, I helped shape what happened—and what didn’t happen—in the middleweight division. This fight is a good example: I benefited immensely from it because people are still talking about it 22 years later.
Of course, there are defeats that are tough to take. There are defeats that aren’t easy to brush off. But to me, martial arts stand out from all other sports. If you don’t have a tough core, if you aren’t resilient and can’t handle that kind of thing, you’re in the wrong sport.
Dealing out blows is easy. Taking them is the part that many people don’t like to do. Defeats are part of the game. You learn from every loss, every sparring session, every training session. Sometimes you have a bad day. Sometimes your opponent boxes completely differently than expected. Sometimes you completely lose your train of thought. Sometimes everything is going great, and then you get hit hard.
In sports, anything can happen. I’ve seen it all. That’s why you need a strong character. Shake it off for a moment, take a breather for a day or two, then analyze what happened and move on. If something like that breaks you—if you dwell on it for too long—it’ll be hard to get back on track. But those who don’t give up will eventually succeed.
Speaking of success, you’ve been world champion five times. Which title means the most to you?
Winning your first title is, of course, something special. It was like something out of a movie back then. I’d had three weeks of training, then spent the last week bulking up. On the Monday before the fight, I was told: “Bert Schenk is injured; you can fight for the world title.” Then came the doctor, the paperwork—everything happened so fast. All of a sudden, you’re the world champion, you’re in the newspaper, people stop you on the street. That was really something special.
But a very special moment for me was winning the title against Darren Barker, when I became world champion for the fourth time. The atmosphere was insane, really electric. Many people said beforehand that it would be a really tough fight. Barker was a strong fighter; he had beaten Daniel Geale. A lot of people don’t even know that I fought Geale while suffering from severe bronchitis. Before the Barker fight, people were saying, “This is Sturm’s last chance; it’s practically impossible for him to become world champion again.”
I didn’t worry about it. Ten days before the fight, I still had a cut above my eye. Things got hectic. I had to go to the doctor, got stitches, had to put ointment on it every day, kept training, and we had to keep it a secret so no one would notice the cut. Then weight cutting, weigh-in, fight.
After the weigh-in, I was very relaxed. I knew: This is going to work out. I perform very well under pressure. Whenever I’ve faced fights like this, I’ve always delivered. I like fighting under pressure because I can handle it. The people around me tend to get nervous, which I understand. But I don’t let it bother me. I’m confident in myself. I don’t train to worry. I train to be a champion, to become a champion, to win. That’s why this title was such a big deal to me.
Can you learn to have that kind of mindset?
Anyone can work on themselves. The more success you have, the stronger you become mentally. And when setbacks happen, you have to remind yourself: Muhammad Ali lost, Mike Tyson lost—even the world’s greatest athletes have lost.
Today, people are talking about it on social media, and memes are being created on TikTok. But honestly: Who gives a damn? I’ve been through it all before. People talked, I lost, then I came back and was celebrated again. That’s just how people are. Today they celebrate you, tomorrow they’ll step on you, and the day after tomorrow you’ll be the greatest and best in the world again. You just have to deal with it. What matters is: Who’s in your inner circle? Who’s on the outside? Who do you let in? Can you trust them? Are they really there for you? The ones who aren’t unhappy about your success—those are your friends.
You’ll find part three of the interview on box-sport.de in the coming days!
Interview by Robin Josten