Tough boxing match and unsurprising TV show

Dusseldorf. Patience was really needed on this Saturday evening. From the television viewers, who were able to grab a beer in the meantime, but above all from the 13,000 people in the PSD Bank Dome in Düsseldorf, where Stefan Raab announced his comeback for this evening and has been attracting attention for months.

It was clear in advance that he would not be on time for the start of the show at 8:15 p.m. But Raab made us wait two hours, filling the time with praise for middle-aged and old celebrities (from Peter Kloeppel to Thomas Gottschalk to Helge Schneider) – in doing so, the 57-year-old ultimately overstretched the nerves of many people.

Waiting for Raab in the PSD Bank Dome in Düsseldorf

While some of the social media outlets were full of anger and malice (“Only if Raab were to die in the ring today like Apollo Creed in Rocky IV would this kind of endless obituary be justified”), the people there had no choice but to sit and watch. At that moment, it had little to do with a live show.

As people watch in their living rooms, they look at the screens hanging in the hall and listen to how “Tote Hosen” singer Campino Raab described himself as a “musical genius”, interrupted only by Laura Wontorra, who in the meantime questioned the audience or a few RTL reality faces like Evelyn Burdecki. They predicted that the fight would last seven rounds instead of six, and that said it all.

Pamela Reif sings: “Stefan Raab is returning, everyone is delighted”

When Raab finally began his entrance after almost two hours – including fitness influencer Pamela Reif flying through the hall as an angel and singing “Stefan Raab is back, everyone is delighted”, a “cat toilet” appearance by Helge Schneider, an act with Ski Aggu and Sido and lots of fireworks – many people were certainly happy that Regina Halmich took the motto of Raab's song “Pa aufs Maul” seriously.

The former world boxing champion, who suffered only one defeat in her entire career, gave Raab, who was well trained but weaker in terms of fitness and boxing skills, exactly that: a “punch in the mouth” – in the ribs. A bruise, as a doctor called by Raab later stated at a press conference. Halmich won the boxing match on points after six rounds – and it has to be said that the entertainer held out until the end was respectable, after he was already hanging on the ropes after round four.

Raab has a new home station

Most people had already suspected that the event was not just about a boxing match. Even if some people might have wished for something more surprising in the long, artificially inflated prelude: “I've thought: I'm going to do shows again,” said Raab at first, “it starts next week.” Later, in a press conference, he clarified that he had signed a five-year exclusive contract with RTL, and next Wednesday he would present his new show “Du gewinnst hier nicht die Million bei Stefan Raab” on RTL+. Obviously a competitor to Raab's former show “TV Total”, which runs (almost) at the same time with Sebastian Pufpaff on ProSieben.

So the cat is out of the bag, the phantom Stefan Raab has been unmasked. Everyone now knows what the entertainer looks like – fit, but with a bit of grey hair on his head and face – that he has a new house channel and that from Wednesday he will be competing in all kinds of games against “normal people” again.

The mystery surrounding his comeback, which Raab himself had encouraged on Instagram with several lavishly produced videos with a celebrity cast (Pamela Reif as trainer, Michael “Bully” Herbig as plastic surgeon), has been solved. But the “TV sensation of the year” has a bitter aftertaste. The former “Schlag den Raab” and “TV Total” presenter, celebrated in an earlier decade as a TV icon who stepped down at the right time, risked more than just a broken rib. He is risking his already controversial legendary status. The aura of the great absentee is definitely gone.