Soliman defeats Sturm; Kentikian decisions Jah

By Boxing News - 02/01/2013 - Comments

By Jim Dower: 39-year-old Sam Soliman (37-4-2, 17 KO’s) bounced back from a 2nd round knockdown to come back and defeat former WBA Super World middleweight champion Felix Sturm (37-4-2, 17 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision in their International Boxing Federation 160 pound eliminator bout at the ISS Dome, Düsseldorf, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.

The decision was controversial, however, as many boxing fans saw the 33-year-old Sturm as being the better man tonight. The judges saw it different, scoring the fight 116-111, 114-113 and 114-113, all for Soliman. Sturm knocked Soliman down right a right hand in the 2nd.

At that point in the fight, Sturm looked way too powerful for Soliman, and it appeared that he was going to knock him out soon had he kept up the pace of the fight. However, Soliman took over the fight after the 3rd, and was able to land constantly with his weaker shots. It didn’t that he didn’t have the power that Sturm had because he was constantly landing.

You can make an argument both ways that Sturm or Soliman won the fight because it was one of those fights where you either focused on Sturm’s harder landing shots and much better jab or you looked at the fact that Soliman was out-working Sturm in every round from the 3rd.

With this victory, Soliman will move on to face IBF middleweight champion Daniel Geale later in the year. It’s a huge win for Soliman, who will be soon turning 40. Few boxing fans gave him much of a chance to beat Sturm, but he proved them wrong.

For Sturm it’s going to be tough for him to come back from this loss. Unless one of the middleweight champions select him to fight in an optional defense, which is not likely to happen, it’s going to take Sturm a considerable amount of time to get in another eliminator bout. He doesn’t match up well with the other middleweight champions Sergio Martinez, Peter Quillin and Gennady Golovkin, and it’s doubtful he would even try to face one of them because he seems to know his limitations.

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Susi Kentikian (29-2, 16 KO’s) defeated Sanae Jah (7-1, 2 KO’s) by a 10 round unanimous decision to pick up the vacant interim WBA female flyweight title by the scores 99-91, 99-93, 97-92. Kentikian dropped Jah right a right hand in the 7th, and she controlled most of the other rounds of the fight with her fast hands, constant pressure, and excellent inside work.

Kentikian was cut under her right eye from a punch and then she suffered another cut in the 10th round with the same eye from a head-butt. The German crowd was pleased with her toughness, as she kept fighting hard despite the blood dripping into her eye.

Boxing results:

Alex Born TKO 2 Rafal Raczynski
Magomed Yangubaev TKO 1 Suleyman Dag
Maurice Weber UD 6 Mariusz Biskupski
Adnan Redzovic UD 6 Niko Falin
Lolenga Mock UD 8 Patrick Dobroschi



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