By Chet Mills: I recently watched the first fight on YouTube between WBA middleweight champion Felix Sturm (29-2-1, 13 KOs) and American Randy Griffin (24-1-3, 12 KOs), and it looked like a great fight. If the second fight is anything like the first bout, then the boxing fans are in store for an excellent fight. Griffin, 32, is a good fighter, who likes to throw lots of punches every round. He doesn’t have much power to speak of but he keeps his opponents busy on defense having to try and fend off his constant shots. In their previous fight, which turned out to be a 12-round draw, Griffin made Sturm mighty uncomfortable with his constant shots, not allowing Sturm to rest for an instant.
Though Griffin is ranked as the #1 challenger in the WBA, I’d place him around #14 or 15 overall in the middleweight division. There are just way better fighters than him in the division. He’s lucky right now, because he’s gotten his chance at fighting for the title before the other better middleweights, like Joe Green, John Duddy, Sebastian Sylvester, Sebastian Zbik, Anthony Mundine and Cory Spinks move in for the kill. I guess you could call it his 15 minutes of fame, although for him, it’s lasted a little longer than that due to his previous 12-round draw with Sturm late last year.
Sturm, 29, has taken a lot of flake on the internet as of late, with most of the comments saying that he’s not a legitimate champion, that he’s protected and has avoided more dangerous opponents, and that he’s been beaten by inferior fighters (Javier Castillejo). However, Sturm seems to have done all that has been asked of him as a champion, fighting his mandatories when he’s been forced to out of necessity and in between that time, beating lower ranked fighters like most champions have done. He’s lost his title a couple of times, getting beaten by Oscar De La Hoya and Castillejo.
Sturm, however, stuck around and won the title back on two occasions. Now, he’s trying to hold onto it against one of his better opponents in Griffin. Sturm seems to do well against slower fighters with poor work rates, ones that load up with their shots. With Griffin, though, he’s the opposite of those fighters, focusing more on volume punching and not much on power. Griffin stayed on top of Sturm, staying at close quarters and beating him to the punch. This left Sturm with the uncomfortable position of having to trade shots with him on the inside where he’s much less skilled.
Sturm doesn’t particularly like to get hit, then again, which fighter does? However, in Sturm’s case, he seems to really not like getting hit a lot, and kind of went into a shell when getting bombarded by Griffin last time out. It wasn’t until late in the fight, after his right eye was red and swollen, and that he looked to be behind, that he finally started getting his offense in gear. He eventually rallied and appeared to win the last couple of rounds, turning the fight into a draw. It wasn’t pretty, but he did enough to make the fight even. This time out, I think he knows what he has to do, and will take the fight to Griffin earlier in the bout and won’t give away so many crucial rounds like he did last time.