By Jim Dower: WBO super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz (40-2, 23 KO’s) has decided to slip in one more title defense against No.14 ranked World Boxing Organization contender Henry Weber (15-0-1, 3 KO’s) on January 14th at the Baden Arena in Offenburg, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany.

This is a really risky fight for the 30-year-old Stieglitz because Weber, 23, can fight a little and he’s got enough talent to beat a limited fighter like Stieglitz and mess up his plans on a big payday fight against former WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler on April 14th. Stieglitz, who has already defended his WBO title four times in the past two years against little more than scrub opponents, is getting greedy by trying to slip in one more small payday against Weber before taking what will likely be his last fight as the WBO champion against Kessler in April.

Stieglitz will clearly lose that fight barring any kind of injury from Kessler. But the Weber fight could really upset Stieglitz’s big plans should he lose that fight. I’ve seen Weber fight on a num

ber of occasions against little known opposition and while he does lack any of power, he puts his punches together well. Weber keeps his opponents busy by throwing a lot of shots. Stieglitz has problems against high volume punchers. Four years ago, Stieglitz was easily beaten by Librado Andrade by an 8th round TKO loss in March 2008. Andrade, who’s not a big puncher, simply stayed in front of Stieglitz all night long and threw a lot of punches.

Stieglitz couldn’t keep up with the fast pace that Andrade set for him and eventually fell completely apart in the 8th round and was stopped. Weber is like a younger version of Andrade and can do the same thing to Stieglitz if he can take his occasional hard shots. Stieglitz isn’t a big puncher either, but he’s got some decent power. If Weber’s chin is vulnerable, he’ll get mowed down. But the trick with Stieglitz is to stay close to him and not give him any room to get his shots off. He needs leverage on his punches to throw with any kind of real power and is more of classic European fighter who can only fight well at a distance.

The undercard of the Stiegliz-Weber fight will have the following appealing fights:

Arthur Abraham vs. Pablo Natalio Farias – super middleweight
Kubrat Pulev vs. Michael Sprott – heavyweight
Romona Kuehne vs. Renata Domsodi – Women’s super featherweight
Dustin Dirks vs. Matthew Barney – light heavyweight
Marcos Nader vs. Farouck Daku – middleweight