By Manuel Perez: Former super middleweight title challenger Librado Andrade (26-1, 20 KOs) will take on Russian Robert Stieglitz (31-1, 19 KOs) on Saturday night in an IBF super middleweight title eliminator at the Morongo Casino Resort & Spa, in Cabazon, California. The winner of the bout gets a shot at IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute, which will be no easy task for the winner. Andrade, 29, ranked #5 in the IBF and #8 in the WBC, is a 6’2″ high volume puncher that typically puts a ton of pressure on his opponents and overwhelms them with punches.
His career was cruising along in high gear in 2007, when he lost a one-sided 12-round unanimous decision to then WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler, losing every round of the fight. The loss was especially disappointing for Andrade, in that he looked bad and failed to fight competitively against Kessler. Going into the bout, there were some – this author included – that felt that Andrade would be able to pull off an upset over Kessler. However, Kessler was too fast and highly skilled for Andrade, and made him look bad in the process of pounding out a 12-round decision.
Since that time, Andrade went back to the drawing board, and turned his career around with two victories against Ted Muller, stopping him in the 2nd round on July 21, and Yusaf Mack, whom he beat by 7th round TKO on October 6th. The victory against Mack forced Andrade to get off the canvas after having been knocked down in the 1st round by Mack, a big puncher. However, by the 7th round, Andrade turned the fight around and dropped Mack three times leading to the referee stopping the fight.
Andrade’s opponent, Robert Stiglitz, now lives and fights out of Germany, where he has built up a respectable career against mostly limited European opposition. His biggest win of his career came in December 2005 when he stopped Colombian Alejandro Berrio in the 11th round in an IBF super middleweight title eliminator. The victory celebration was short-lived for a year and a half later Stieglitz was stopped in the 3rd round by Berrio in their rematch on March 3rd 2007. Since that time, Stieglitz has responded with two victories over Marlon Hayes and William Gare in 2007, both of whom Stieglitz beat by one-sided unanimous decision victories.
Overall, Stieglitz does every thing well – good power and movement, excellent jab and a sound defense. He seemed to get careless for a moment against Berrio and paid for it when he ran into a big left hand shot that knocked him out. Thankfully, Andrade doesn’t have the same kind of power that Berrio does. However, Andrade will apply constant pressure and will force Stieglitz either to fight back or use the ring to move the entire fight. Stieglitz will have to excellent conditioning if he figures to come out on top because Andrade never stops coming forward and reminds me of a larger version of lightweight Juan Diaz, a fighter noted for his withering attacks against his opponents.