WBA middleweight champion Felix Sturm (28-2-1, 12 KOs) fought to a 12-round draw against American challenger Randy Griffin (24-1-3, 12 KOs) on Saturday night at the Gerry Weber Stadium in Germany. The final judges’ scores were 114-114, 115-114 for Sturm and 117-111 for Griffin. I personally had Griffin winning easily by 8 rounds to four. It wasn’t a close fight and I was being generous by giving Sturm two of the four rounds, because he out-punched in every round of the fight and mostly limited to jabs as his main weapon. Griffin dominated the first two rounds of the fight, attacking Sturm nonstop and hitting him with a massive amount of hooks.
However, each time that Stum landed anything – almost entirely jabs – the German crowd would roar with approval, as if he’d scored a knockdown or something. It had to have had an effect on the judges because Sturm really took a beating in every round and rarely let his hands go at all.
However, the fact that the bout was in Germany it doesn’t surprise me that Griffin got a raw deal. When a foreign fighter goes to that country for a bout, he better plan on either knocking out the German based fighter or beating the stuffing out of him if he plans on getting the decision. In Griffin’s case, he came close to beating the tar out of Sturm, yet he still wasn’t able to get the decision.
Sturm landed a number of jabs in the 3rd round, snapping Griffin’s head back each time. I can’t say enough about Sturm’s jab, it’s one of the best in the business, and almost like an overhand right in power. I gave Sturm this round, simply because the German crowd was screaming so loudly each time he landed one of his jabs. However, Griffin landed many more shots in the round and kept Sturm on the ropes much of the time. In a neutral country, Griffin easily wins this round.
Griffin was much busier in the fourth round, hitting Sturm with dozens of punches without much coming back other than Sturm’s jabs, which were infrequent. Sturm opened up finally with his offense in the fifth round, and legitimately won the round. He looked good, though he was out-punched once again by Griffin. In rounds six through eight, Griffin controlled the rounds and was much busier, attacking Sturm constantly and keeping him fighting off his back foot, defensively.
Sturm came back strong in the 9th round, and landed a number of excellent right hands. However, in rounds 10-12, Griffin pulled away and was much busier, as he stayed on Sturm, pounding him with hooks. Afterwards, there was no doubt in my mind that Griffin had won, because it had been such a one-sided bout. However, when the scored were announced, I chocked it up as another bad decision in Germany, a place where only rarely do they get the decisions right.