By Rob Smith: Instead of taking on the dangerous WBA regular middleweight champion Gennedy Golovkin, WBA Super World middleweight champion Felix Sturm (37-2-2, 16 KO’s) is reportedly in talks with IBF middleweight champion Daniel Geale (27-1, 15 KO’s) for a fight – if they can come to an agreement – that will take place in the next few months.
It’s obviously not the fight that boxing fans in general want to see, as they prefer to see Sturm face the knockout puncher Golovkin. However, this will no doubt make Australian boxing fans happy if Geale gets the unification bout against Sturm because Geale comes from Australia and they’d get to see their fighter in action against the long-time WBA champ Sturm.
It’s kind of a no-brainer for Sturm to take the unification bout with the 31-year-old Geale rather than Golovkin, because Geale’s not much of a puncher and the only thing that Sturm has to worry about against him is to focus on beating him by a decision. With Sturm’s excellent jab and decent power, the chances would be high that he would come out on top in this fight as long he doesn’t get hit with a shot he doesn’t see coming.
Sturm, 33, has defended his World Boxing Association title a total of 12 times since winning it by a controversial 12 round decision over Javier Castillejo in April 2007. The knock on Sturm is that he’s never been in a huge hurray to take on the best middleweights in the division in the years that he’s held the WBA title. Sturm never fought Arthur Abraham, Kelly Pavlik, Sergio Martinez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in all the years he’s been the WBA champion.
Those fights would likely have netted Sturm his biggest paydays of his career. Instead, Sturm has chosen pretty much the mostly mediocre contenders that the WBA had ranked below him, and he’s done just what was necessary to hold onto his title. For example, when defending his title during voluntary defenses, Sturm has typically taken lower ranked opponents rather than setting up bigger fights. Recently, Sturm beat Matthew Macklin by controversial 12 round decision last year in June. Sturm followed that up with a 12 round draw against Martin Murray in a fight that a lot of boxing fans thought Murray should have been given the decision.