By Erik Schmidt: This Saturday night, unbeaten World Boxing Organization super middleweight champion Karoly Balzsay (21-0, 15 KO’s) will be defending his WBO title against German based challenger Robert Stieglitz, (35-2, 21 KO’s) in a 12 round bout at the SYMA Sport & Leisure Center, in Budapest, Hungary.
Balzsay, 30, arguably the weakest of the super middleweight champions, will be making his 2nd defense of his WBO title in fighting the number #6 ranked Stieglitz. It’s a lucky thing for Balzsay that he’s only fighting Stieglitz rather than number #1 ranked contender Andre Ward, because Balzsay, a limited fighter with not much power, would have huge problems against a skilled opponent like Ward.
However, Ward has a tune-up fight he’s taking next month on September 12th against Shelby Pudwill as Ward gets ready to take part in the Showtime Super Six tournament in October. Balzsay has defended his WBO title once since defeating champion Denis Inkin in a close and controversial 12 round decision in January to capture the title.
In Balzsay’s first defense, he fought 43-year-old Maselino Masoe in April, stopping him in the 11th round. Like a lot of German based fighters, Balzsay doesn’t appear to be all that interested in taking on any dangerous opponents as he is going after easy marks within the division rather than tough contenders like Ward, Allan Green and Sakio Bika.
Hopefully, Balzsay doesn’t make a practice of doing this because I’d hate to see his career end up like WBA middleweight champion Felix Sturm, a fighter known for taking the easiest fights available when making non-mandatory title defenses.
Given the fact that Balzsay already took on an easy opponent in 43-year-old Masoe, it seems peculiar that he’s taking on another soft opponent in Stieglitz in his next title defense. Stieglitz is a decent fighter, but he’s been stopped twice in the past two years against Alejandro Berrio and Librado Andrade in one-sided fights.
Stieglitz only has one notable victory among 35 wins, that being an 11th round stoppage of Berrio in December 2005. Berrio would then turn around and destroy Stieglitz in a 3rd round stoppage two years later in 2007 to avenge his earlier defeat.
There’s a reason why Balzsay wasn’t invited to the Showtime tournament and it’s because he has really basic skills and isn’t particularly good at anything he does. He’s a good fighter, but he’s more of a more of a paper champion than a real one. With all the titles available nowadays with the four different sanctioning bodies handing them out like their candy, you end up with at least one or two weak champions like this in every division.
In time, things will be self corrected when Balzsay ends up fighting someone like Green, Bika or Ward. Balzsay will likely be destroyed by those fighters when that time comes. But I’m hoping that Balzsay doesn’t make a practice of taking on the weakest opponents available to him in order to try and hold onto his WBO title for as long as possible. It’s not interesting or good for boxing to have a champion fishing for the weakest fights out there.
Also on the card, Jurgen Brahmer (33-2, 27 KO’s) will be fighting Aleksy Kuziemski (17-0, 4 KO’s) for the interim WBO light heavyweight title. Brahmer, 30, has won two fights since being schooled in a lopsided 12 round decision loss to Hugo Hernan Garay last year in November. Kuziemski, 32, a former 2004 Olympian for Poland and now fighting out of Hamburg, Germany, got off to a late start in his pro career only turning pro five years ago in 2004.
Kuziemski has looked good against the limited opposition that his German handlers have put him in with. Kuziemski will be taking a tremendous leap up in competition on Saturday night and it’s unclear whether he’ll be ready for the huge leap.
He’s not very fast with his hands and wide open on defense. Brahmer will likely be too much for him and will probably win this one by a 12 round decision. The WBO light heavyweight champion is Zsolt Erdei, another German based fighter. This would set up a fight against him for the winner of Saturday’s fight at some point in the near future.