By Per Ake Persson: July 15, Berlin, Germany: Spanish veteran Javier Castillejo scored a come from behind victory over WBA middle champ Felix Sturm and won the title with a tenth round stoppage. Sturm was badly hurt and floored in the second but survived and outboxed the slower Spaniard in rounds three to nine. Behind by six points on one card and four on two going into the tenth, Castillejo caught Sturm against the ropes and hurt him with a short left. Sturm moved away from the ropes but was soon trapped again and was stunned by a left hook to the head..
He was gone and the three left uppercuts to the head that followed took all the fight out of him and referee Mark Nelson made a well timed stoppage. Sturm was out of it and it took a few minutes on the stool before he recovered. Sturm was taken to a hospital with a suspected broken jaw but was on the way back to the Color Line Arena, as I left, to take the doping test.
Universum have options on Castillejo so his near future is likely to be in German rings.
WBA bantam champ Wladimir Sidorenko retained the title with a very hardfought win over Thailand´s Poonsawat Kratingdaengym. It was scored 120-108, 116-112 and 115-113. Sidorenko sealed the win with exellent boxing on the move in the last three rounds but finished with a bad swelling around the left eye.
Italian heavy Paolo Vidoz suffered a busted eardrum and a knee injury as he was knocked out by Ukrainian Vladimir Virchis in the sixth. Virchis won the EBU title and is now heading to Palma de Mallorca for a vacation with his family. “I could read him well” said Vidoz, “I saw all of his punches coming, except one …”
Ruslan Chagaev, fresh off sparring with Larry Donald, retained the WBA I/C and added the vacant WBO A-P belt to his collection with an eighth round stoppage of Michael Sprott. Chagaev was ahead on points when Sprott fell apart and was floored.
Pick of the undercard was welter Alpaslan Aguzum´s hardfought eight-round majority win over Latvian Jurijs Boreiko, who gave Aguzum all he could handle and was deserving of at least a draw.