KALLE SAUERLAND oozes mischief. It leeks from his Joker smile and slicks back his dark brown hair in goodfellas style. But to mistake that mischief – or perhaps a better way of putting it, his public persona – as a clue that Sauerland isn’t taking his role as one of the most powerful figures in world boxing seriously, that he’s winging it and making it up as he goes along (or as social media might have you believe, that he’s regularly hoovering white lines from the bare chests of ladies drunk on champagne), would be doing the man a huge disservice.
“I like being known as a party animal, it makes me feel young,” a chripy Sauerland tells Boxing News of a reputation that grew from an age-old nervous tick in his jaw being misinterpreted as gurning while high as a kite. “I don’t mind the bad boy image, I don’t give a s**t. But let’s be serious, if I partied like people think I do, seven nights a week with private planes, 50 chicks in the hot tub and 100 bottles of champagne a night, as much as it sounds like my kind of life, well, it would also be completely ridiculous. I was pretty wild in my twenties but, man, when you hit your forties… The key for everyone is to find some balance in life, whatever you’re doing. Whether you’re the CEO of an international company or a road sweeper, you have different challenges every day, you need that balance.
“I love to bring the bad boy out once in a while, no doubt about it, but the days of me doing that day in, day out are long gone. For me, life is very simple. I have four pockets: My sport, my family, my social and my business. But when one takes over, one of the others has to give. You only have one life, do what you have to do, do what you enjoy, but don’t p**s about with it.”