By Scott Gilfoid: Well, this was what I was afraid of tonight. IBF middleweight champion Darren Barker (26-2, 16 KO’s) came into Stuttgart, Germany and was blown out of the water in 2 rounds by Felix Sturm (39-3-2, 18 KO’s) in a total massacre at the Porsche Arena. The fight was stopped by referee Mark Nelson at 2:09 of the 2nd round.
Sturm hurt Barker with a right hand behind the ear and knocked him down twice in the 2nd round. Barker winked to his corner after the 2nd knockdown, as if to say ‘I’m okay.” However, Barker wasn’t okay and he continued to take heavy punishment until his corner mercifully threw in the white towel of surrender to save Barker from being badly hurt.
Barker reportedly dislocated his hip. How that happened is hard to tell. I had a feeling that if Sturm hit Barker in his previously operated on hip that it would go out on him, and sure enough that’s what happened. but the weird thing is it was the opposite hip of the one he was operated on. Go figure. What’s up with Barker’s hips?
With the hip injury, it complicates a rematch between Barker and Sturm because it’s probably going to take ages for Barker’s hip to heal even without surgery.
The hip problem for Barker seemed to have happened AFTER he was knocked down, not before. I saw Barker limp a little after he got back up and it’s possible he hit the canvas too hard after being dropped by a vicious right hand to the head.
Once again, Barker’s chin betrayed him and it’s too bad. Barring the hip injury, I would have liked to have seen whether Barker could have come back from the two knockdowns to win the fight. I noticed that Barker started limping after the 2nd knockdown, which leads me to believe that he was fine before he was knocked down the second time. If he could have make it to the end up the round then he might have been able to come back in the fight.
In hindsight, Barker didn’t do the right thing after being knocked down the first time. Instead of clinching and trying to buy time to clear his head, Barker started trading shots as if he could fight his way out of it. That was not a smart thing, as you can see now. It enabled Sturm to nail Barker with another series of right hands that resulted in Barker getting knocked down a second time.
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Other boxing action on the card:
Susi Kentikian W 10 Simona Galassi
Konni Konrad TKO 5 Leo Tchoula
Alex Born W 4 Vladimir Fecko
Adnan Redzovic W 10 Igor Pylypenko
Arman Torosyan W TKO3 Dzianis Makar
Maurice Weber W TKO3 Volodymyr Borovskyy
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