Former IBF/WBA/WBO middleweight champion Felix Sturm (39-4-2, 18 KOs) and former WBO 168 pound title holder Robert Stieglitz (47-4, 27 KOs) will share the ring on November 8th at the Porsche Arena, Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
The fight is being talked about as being a WBO super middleweight eliminator bout. The winner would then get to face WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham. Stieglitz is no stranger to Abraham because he’s already fought him three times in the last 2 years, and if he beats Sturm, he could get a 4th fight against him.
One can only wonder how many times Abraham and Stieglitz will wind up facing each other before they both retire because a 4th fight is pretty much a given at this point.
Sturm has recently looked depleted and nothing like he once did when he in his prime from 2006-2010. It’s unfortunate that Sturm never fought any of the best in the middleweight division during all of those years. He was never matched up against Kelly Pavlik, Bernard Hopkins, Abraham, Jermain Taylor or Gennady Golovkin. The fact that he’s now fighting Stieglitz near the end of his career is nice but it’s far too late and it’s not a big named opponent.
A lot of boxing fans saw Stieglitz as the wink link among the super middleweight champions during the years he held down the WBO title. The best fighter Stieglitz has fought during his career is Abraham, and he’d already been exposed by Andre Dirrell, Andre Ward and Carl Froch long before Stieglitz fought him and lost. Stieglitz never fought Andre Ward, Carl Froch, Mikkel Kessler, Andre Dirrell, Anthony Dirrell or Sakio Bika. How he was able to fight all those years without taking on the best fighters in the division is unclear.
With the way that Sturm and Stieglitz have been matched during their careers, you can say they both have a lot in common because they somehow were never put in against the best guys in their respective divisions.
“Robert Stieglitz is a strong fighter. He especially proved that in his fights against Arthur Abraham,” Sturm said. “Both of us have the experience of fighting a lot of exciting world championship battles. Believe me, this is one heck of fight for the fans in Germany and around the world. I’ll have a lot of surprises ready for Robert. I have great respect for him and this fight means a lot to both of us. But I promise that I’ll do everything in my power to leave the ring victorious.”
