Adnan Ćatić

German boxer Adnan Ćatić was of Bosnian descent born in Leverkusen and held both nationalities. He was eliminated in the quarter-finals of the light-middleweight division at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. He started his boxing career at the age of eleven at his home club TSV Bayer 04 Leverkusen. In 1995 and 1996 he was German youth national champion and in 1998 and 1999 the senior champion. Shortly before the 2000 Olympics Ćatić won the European Championships.

Soon after the Olympics, Ćatić turned professional and used the German name Felix Sturm to be better known by a broader audience. He then started an impressive career and won several Professional World Championships. He was WBO middleweight champion, beating Argentinian Héctor Javier Velazco in 2003 and defending the title in 2004 against Spanish boxer Rubén Varón Fernández. In 2004, Ćatić controversially lost the title to the American Oscar De La Hoya, but Sturm was clearly the better boxer on the day.

Sturm then won the WBA title in 2006 by beating the American Samoan Maselino Masoe, but he lost the title to Spain’s Francisco Javier Castillejo Rodríguez only four months later. In 2007, Sturm beat Castillejo to regain the WBA title and held it until 2010 when he lost it by default to Gennady Golovkin from Kazakhstan as the WBA declared Sturm as their super-middleweight champion.

Sturm defended this title several times until he lost to Australian Daniel Geale in 2012. Sturm then boxed for the IBF middleweight title in 2013 against Britain’s Darren Barker, and lost it to Australian Sam Soliman in 2014. Finally, Sturm won the WBA super-middleweight title against Russian Fyodor Chudinov in 2016, a title he had given up after being suspected of a doping violation. Officially, he declared he was standing down because of elbow injuries.

Sturm had several conflicts with the law. In 2005 he was fined 12,500€ after a brawl in a park garage, in 2019 he was sentenced to eight months in prison due to tax evasion, and again in 2020 to a further three years, again due to tax evasion. Sturm was further convicted of violating the anti-doping law. He worked as a boxing promoter after his active career.