By Sean McDaniel: Former British and EBU middleweight champion Matthew Macklin (28-2, 19 KO’s) appears to have bitten off a little more than he can chew in WBA Super World middleweight champion Felix Sturm (35-2-1, 15 KO’s), who the 29-year-old Macklin win be facing on June 25th at the Lanxess-Arena, Cologne, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.

If you’re a British boxing fan, you have to be pleased for Macklin that he’s finally getting a world title shot after toiling away for the past 10 years without a title shot. The problem is that Sturm is probably far too good for Macklin to have any real chance of winning and this could very well end badly for Macklin. Sturm is well aware of Macklin’s vulnerabilities and intends on exposing them immediately by taking the fight to him from the 1st round.

In an article at Sky Sports, Sturm said “Matthew seems very confident but we will what happens in the ring. I will bombard him from the first bell and we will see if he can cope with that.”

Macklin, ranked #2 WBA, #4 WBO in the middleweight division, struggled badly to beat fringe middleweight contender Ruben Varon by a 12 round decision in his last fight in December. Varon is a decent fighter, but he’s not in the class of Sturm and that tells you that Macklin is in over his head against Sturm and he’s likely going to get beaten fairly easily. Macklin had looked good as of late until the Varon fight, beating the likes of Wayne Elcock, Amin Asikainen, Rafael Sosa Pintos, and Shalva Jomardashvili. However, when Macklin stepped it up against Varon, he performed poorly and looked like a European level fighter rather than world class.

Sturm had been having an easy time for the last three years until he fought Ronald Hearns in his last fight in February. Sturm won the fight by a 7th round TKO but he got marked up badly by Hearns and had to struggle to win.

I think Macklin will have his movements against Sturm because of his power and combination punching. However, Sturm will take over the fight fairly early and end up jabbing Macklin and controlling the fight with combinations to win a 12 round points decision.