By Rob Smith: Former WBC middleweight champion Sebastian Zbik (30-1, 10 KO’s) faces WBA World middleweight champion Felix Sturm (36-2-2, 15 KO’s) next Friday on April 13th at the Lanxess-Arena, Cologne, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.
Zbik, 30, likes his chances against the 33-year-old Sturm and figures he’s ripe for the taking after two consecutive close call fights against Matthew Macklin and Martin Murray in 2011. Sturm won a controversial split decision victory over Macklin in June of last year, and then followed up that poor performance with a 12 round draw against Murray in December in another fight a lot of boxing fans saw Sturm losing.
Zbik told the Bild.de “He [Sturm] has been running for three years, one of which is his mandatory defense…The last two fights were weak by Sturm, not just for me but he [should have] lost to Macklin. After that fight he almost [lost] against Murray. We know exactly what his weaknesses, which will be exploited mercilessly. I’ll pulverize him.”
Zbik doesn’t have a lot of power, so it’s kind of difficult to see him pulverizing Sturm or anyone. With only 10 knockouts in his 31 fights, I think it’s safe to say Zbik probably won’t be knocking Sturm out on Friday night in Cologne, Germany. If big hitters like Murray and Macklin couldn’t do it, then a lighter puncher like Zbik probably has little chance of getting a stoppage win over Sturm. I’d be more inclined to seeing Sturm being the one to score a knockout if there is going to be one. But I don’t see either guy being stopped in this fairly evenly matched fight.
In his last fight, Zbik was beaten by Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. by a 12 round majority decision last year in June. It was a decisive win for Chavez Jr., although Zbik did give Chavez Jr. a lot of problems for the first six rounds of the fight before he was worn down by Chavez Jr’s heavy pressure and huge size advantage in the fight. Chavez Jr. weighed in close to 180 pounds on the night of the fight and he looked a lot bigger than Zbik, but slower.
Zbik has a chance at beating Sturm if he can take the fight to him and work Sturm over on the inside with uppercuts. Sturm is a good outside fighter, and hard to beat due to his jab. Zbik won’t be able to out-box Sturm. His only chance is to try and overwhelm him with a fierce attack in the same way that Macklin and Murray did. Unfortunately, that’s not how Zbik fights, as he’s more of a traditional boxer, who likes to fight on the outside and stick and move. He’s perfect for Sturm; hence he’s been given the fight.