Robert Stieglitz vs. Mehdi Amar for EBU title

By Boxing News - 07/06/2016 - Comments

Image: Robert Stieglitz vs. Mehdi Amar for EBU title

By Allan Fox: 35-year-old former two-time super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz (49-5-1, 29 KOs) will be challenging EBU light heavyweight champion Mehdi Amar (33-4-2, 16 KOs) for his EBU title, according to Fight News.

The negotiations are currently underway. #6 WBO, #15 WBC expects to beat Amar in a fight that he’s looking to have staged in Germany, and from there, he wants to fight for a world title. It’s unclear whether he wants to fight at super middleweight or at light heavyweight.

It might be the best idea for him to fight IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev. Stieglitz would do better against WBA World 175lb champion Juergen Braehmer, because he’s considered to be the weak ink among the current champions in the division.

Stieglitz was knocked out in the 6th round by Arthur Abraham in July of 2015 in their fourth fight in three years. The two of them basically went back and forth in their four fights together in trading the WBO title. The World Boxing Organization was pretty patient in letting the two German fighters face each other repeatedly with the WBO belt on the line. After Stieglitz’s loss to Abraham last year, he moved up to light heavyweight and has since won his last two fights in defeating Robert Rosenberg and Ricardo Marcelo Ramallo.

“I absolutely want this fight, I’m already doing well in training and I want to bring the European light heavyweight title to Germany,” said Stieglitz to fightnews.com.

Stieglitz is a good fighter, but he doesn’t really fit in at 175. He can probably get a title shot against WBA champion Braehmer, because he’s not been fighting a lot of great opposition since he picked up the bet a few years ago. But if Stieglitz winds up facing Kovalev or WBC champion Adonis Sevenson, then it’s likely to go bad for him. He doesn’t have the kind of punching power needed for him to be able to compete with those types of fighters. Stieglitz should move back down to 168 and continue to fight Abraham but with no titles on the line. Stieglitz doesn’t have the size, youth or power to compete against WBO 168lb champion Gilberto Ramirez.

Mehdi Amar, 34, recently captured the vacant EBU light heavyweight title with a 12 round unanimous decision win over Serhiy Demchenko last May. It was the second time that Amar had beaten Demchenko. Amar has a previous 12 round draw against Konni Konrad in 2014, and losses to Nadjib Mohammedi, Mehdi Bouadla, Hassan N’Dam and Pierre Moreno.