By Scott Gilfoid: In a fight much closer than the ultimate scores handed down, WBA middleweight champion Felix Sturm squeaked by with a narrow, unimpressive 12-round unanimous decision over American Randy Griffin on Saturday night at the Gerry Weber Stadium, Halle, in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. I had the fight scored as a draw, with Sturm losing five out of the last six rounds of the fight after tiring out early. Though other people have called Sturm’s win as impressive, don’t believe, that is, unless you consider a fighter running, covering up, and getting out-punched for the last half of the fight, impressive. The final judges’ scores were a mixed bag – 116-112, 116-113 and 118-110. The last score was simply ridiculous. The fight should have been scored a draw.
Sturm looked good early on, I give him that. His jab was working well in the first two rounds, and he used it keep Griffin on the outside. Griffin seemed to be fighting a different type of fight this time around, not going after Sturm immediately like he did in the first fight. In hindsight, this tactic seemed like a mistake, because without Griffin putting a lot of pressure on Sturm, this allowed him to stand on the outside and throw his jab without any incoming fire to worry about.
This is just the kind of fighting that Sturm likes to do, staying away from getting messy and having to take shots at close range. If you let Sturm stay on the outside, he’ll jab all night long and easily win. Griffin seemed not to understand this in the early rounds, and stayed on the outside and took a lot of jabs to the face. He came back strong in the 3rd, however, and stayed on top of Sturm, blasting him with nonstop combinations. Sturm would attempt to wriggle out, trying to get outside where he could re-establish his jab, but Griffin stayed close and buried him with punches.
Sturm mostly ran in the 4th round, staying on a constant move to prevent Griffin from out-working him as he had in the previous round, and in their first fight. It was a hard round to score, because Sturm looked as if he didn’t want to fight in the round, running and avoiding Griffin. However, in the brief times that he stopped and threw punches, Sturm may have done enough to win the round. It was one of those ugly rounds, the type that bores the audience and detracts from boxing, but I suppose you could give it to Sturm.
In rounds five six, Sturm stopped running and traded shots with Griffin, taking a lot of head shots in the process, but returning fire well with his jabs. Sturm’s jab is like a power punch, and without it, he’d lose pretty much all of his fights because he’s not active enough with his power shots, and he doesn’t have the best of chins.
In the seventh round, Griffin completely took over the fight, coming at Sturm and letting his hands go without stop. It reminded me of a fighter from the past, like Aaron Pryor, the way Griffin refused to stop punching. At the same time, Sturm suddenly began to look very tired, and more than a little worried. He didn’t seem to know how to turn off Griffin’s offense, and no matter how much running Sturm did, Griffin stayed right with him, pelting him with shots.
From rounds eight to the eleventh, Griffin totally controlled the fight, out-landing Sturm by a significant margin. Sturm came back briefly in the 11th, fighting well, albeit slower, and doing enough his Jab to win the round. However, in the 12th round, Sturm was no match for Griffin, who once again turned back on his offense and hit Sturm with a blizzard of punches, easily winning the round. Sturm, like usual, didn’t help himself in the final round, spending much of the time running around the ring and avoiding the action.
That’s pretty typical for a Sturm fight, him running in the final round, staying away and running out the clock as if he knows the fight is in the bag. The fact that it’s fought in his neck of the woods, I guess I’m not surprised that he should feel this way. However, from my perspective, Sturm threw away the victory by choosing not to fight back in the final round. I doubt he would have won the round anyway, because he never showed that he could outfight Griffin when the American was fighting hard, giving it his all.
Afterwards, Griffin was as you would expect very upset with the decision, saying “the scores were ridiculous…if anything, the fight should have been scored a draw.” With that, I’m totally agreement with Griffin, the fight should have been scored a draw.
In other action, unbeaten heavyweight prospect Dennis Boytsov (22-0, 18 KOs) won a lopsided 10-round unanimous decision over Fernely Feliz (23-9, 16 KOs). Boytsov, 22, won every round, defeating the over-matched Feliz by the scores of 100-90, 100-90 and 100-90. Boytsov used fast combinations to dominate the fight, but was unable to take out the strong-chinned Feliz, who looked as if he were just trying to survive and not get knocked out. Boytsov looked average at times, and needs a lot of work if he plans on being a factor in the heavyweight division.
Undefeated middleweight contender Sebastian Zbik (23-0, 9 KOs) took out Mario Alberto Lopez (22-5, 19 KOs) in the 2nd round, dropping him twice with a flurry of power shots. It was a mismatch from the start, with Zbik’s management matching him soft in order to keep him unbeaten and on course for a likely title shot against champion Kelly Pavlik in 2009.
Unbeaten super featherweight Vitali Tajbert (16-0, 6 KOs) looked good in rolling past an outclassed Joao Antonio Bento, winning almost every round of the fight. It was a good win for Tajbert, who looked positively terrible in his last fight, winning a gift decision over Spaniard Jesus Garcia Escalona in February.
That fight made it necessary for Tajbert to go back to the drawing board, once again feeding him lower class opponents to try and build him up. At this point, it’s debatable whether he has the boxing skills to ever be a champion. The final judges’ scores were 119-110, 119-111 and 120-108.