By Eric Thomas: Former WBA middleweight champion Felix Sturm (37-3-2, 16 KO’s) could find himself fighting for a world title very soon if he can get past 39-year-old Sam Soliman (42-11, 17 KO’s) in their IBF World middleweight title eliminator bout on February 2nd at the SS Dome, in Düsseldorf, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.
Sturm, 33, lost his WBA title to IBF middleweight champion Daniel Geale in their unification bout last September in a 12 round split decision loss for Sturm, but all he has to do now is beat Soliman, who you can argue has an incredibly inflated ranking by the International Boxing Federation, and Sturm could then be fighting the winner of the January 30th bout between Geale and Anthony Mundine.
If a Geale-Sturm or Mundine-Sturm fight were to take place, it would likely be in Germany where Sturm has been nearly impossible to beat.
Sturm held the WBA middleweight title from 2007 to 2012, and his time as a champion was marked with a lot of soft title defense for Sturm, controversial decisions, and a lack of a big named opponent. In that regard, Sturm was a lot like fellow German Arthur Abraham, who also did very little in his time as the IBF middleweight champion.
Sturm’s chances of beating Soliman are excellent. Soliman hasn’t taken on a really tough opponent since losing to Anthony Mundine back in 2008. He did beat Giovanni Lorenzo and Garth Wood in his last two fights, but those guys aren’t really the top fighters at middleweight. Sturm will jab his way to a decision and then be ready to fight the winner of the Geale-Mundine later on in 2013.
Soliman will have to really take the fight to Sturm if he wants to beat him because he’s not likely going to be able to box him to a decision in Germany. That’s really hard to do.
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