Almost ten years after his screen farewell, one thing is clear: Stefan Raab still knows how to present himself. Over the Easter period, the entertainer kept his many fans from the old days in suspense. First, on Good Friday he presented a bet as to whether he would get nine million followers in three days - then he would film fitness videos as an influencer. After he clearly missed the number, there was talk of a boxing match against Regina Halmich in an Instagram video on Monday.

Because of the publication day, April 1st, the theory quickly emerged that it was an April Fool's joke. But on Tuesday there were increasing signs that the exhibition fight would actually take place. On Tuesday afternoon, tickets for “The Final Fight” between Raab against ex-professional boxer Regina Halmich on September 14th in Düsseldorf’s PSD Bank Dome were announced on the website of the service provider Eventim. Halmich had previously confirmed Raab's announcement.

The former TV presenter Raab, 57, has already suffered two defeats in exhibition fights against the ex-professional boxer from Karlsruhe, 47, in 2001 and 2007. “In the first two fights I showed him what to do and even broke his nose,” said Halmich. »I think he might be speculating now that I'm not as fit anymore and that he now has a better chance of winning against me. But I have to say, I'm going to put a stop to him."

Raab, who was one of Germany's most important television producers with show ideas like "TV total", largely withdrew from the public eye in 2015 and has been working behind the scenes ever since. In 2018 he appeared in a stage show in Cologne, but it was not broadcast on television.

At the beginning of the year, Raab founded a new production company called Raab Entertainment together with the former ProSieben and Sat.1 station boss Daniel Rosemann. In October 2023, Rosemann left the broadcasting group after 15 years. Shortly beforehand it had become known that Raab and the production company Brainpool would also be going their separate ways. The former Viva presenter and the Cologne company founded Raab TV together. The company was responsible for the production of the show “TV Total,” which Raab hosted for a long time and which is still broadcast on ProSieben today and is now moderated by Sebastian Pufpaff.

The first new project Raab Entertainment announced in March was a highlight show for the European Football Championship, which will be shown on RTL. The first episode of “The RTL EM Studio – All Games, Goals, Emotions” with Jan Köppen and Elton will be shown on June 15th. Stefan Raab's boxing match schedule is also reported very prominently on the RTL homepage.

As announced, tickets for the exhibition fight in the Düsseldorf Arena were offered from 3 p.m. The price categories range from 57.50 euros to 197.50 euros for a seat in the so-called Golden Circle. VIP cards cost even more.

An additional mystery surrounding Raab was presented on Easter Monday by Niclas Matthei, who became prominent as the “advertising master”. In the look of the previous two videos with Raab and Elton, he presented a clip in which he wrote down an incorrectly parked car with the license plate "K-SR" and asked himself off-camera: "The SR could also stand for Stefan Raab."

Also still unresolved is the question of what the abbreviation “NWSDWH” on Raab’s cap means. His production company secured the trademark rights to the sequence of letters at the end of March. In his heyday as a TV entertainer, Stefan Raab loved to add cryptic abbreviations to his shows, such as the casting show “SSDSGPS” (“Stefan is looking for the Super Grand Prix Star”).

Editor's note: In an earlier version we misspelled Regina Halmich's name. We corrected the mistake.

Feb/dpa