Stieglitz vs. Acosta this Saturday

By Erik Schmidt: World Boxing Organization super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz (36-2, 22 KO’s) will be taking on replacement opponent Ruben Acosta (23-3-5, 7 KO’s) this Saturday night at the Bordelandhalle, Magdeburg, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany. Stieglitz was supposed to be facing knockout artist Edison Miranda, but the Colombian fell ill with a bad case of the flu and had to pull out of the fight.

However, the replacement, 31-year-old Acosta from Argentina, isn’t ranked in the top 15 in the super middleweight division by any of the major sanctioning bodies, which makes his selection a rather curious one. You would think that a higher ranked opponent could have been found to replace Miranda, such as Allan Green, Denis Inkin, Dimitri Sartison or Sakio Bika. Miranda, a huge puncher with a shaky chin, would have made it interesting for awhile, and may even had enough to stop Stieglitz.

Acosta will likely be in over his head and will probably lose badly. All three of his losses have come against good fighters, losing to Mariano Natalio Carrera, Anthony Mundine and Karoly Balzsay. Stieglitz stopped Balzsay in the 11th round in August to win the WBO title. However, Stieglitz looked far from impressive in the fight, taking a lot of punishment until Balzsay suddenly ran out of gas in the 11th causing his trainer to step in and stop the bout with Balzsay taking punishment.

Stieglitz was stopped by super middleweight contender Librado Andrade in the 8th round in March 2008. Before that, Stieglitz was taken out by the hard hitting Alejandro Berrio in the 3rd round in March 2007. While Stieglitz has good power and an aggressive forward style attack, he has poor defensive skills and tends to take a lot of hard shots to the head in his fights.

If Stieglitz wins this fight on Saturday night against Acosta, which is very likely, Stieglitz will have the choice of going after Miranda or perhaps trying to line up a unification match against International Boxing Federation super middleweight champion Lucian Bute for a good payday. The fight against Bute will likely bring in more money for Stieglitz, but at a cost.

He’ll likely lose his title to Bute. Stieglitz also could give Balzsay a rematch. That’s a fight that Stieglitz might have a good chance of winning if Balzsay runs out of gas again. Stieglitz was losing the fight to Balzsay until the champion tired out.

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