By Eric Thomas: WBA Super World middleweight champion Felix Sturm (37-2-2, 16 KO’s) skillfully steered around his mandatory challenger Gennady Golovkin in order for Sturm to fight a unification bout against IBF middleweight champion Daniel Geale (27-1, 15 KO’s) on September 1st in a still to be determined venue in Germany.

Sturm seems reluctant to face Golovkin for some reason. Perhaps Sturm is afraid to take Golovkin’s big shots. We’ll never known for sure, but he’s going to have to face Golovkin at some point in time.

After winning a controversial decision over Matthew Macklin in June 2011, Sturm then struggled equally hard in fighting to a 12 round draw in his next bout in December. Sturm, however, did fight well in defeating Sebastian Zbik, the former WBC middleweight champion, by a 9th round stoppage in April of this year. Those were good wins for Sturm but it’s time that he step up and start facing better opponents.

The 33-year-old Sturm will likely have to step it up after the Geale fight and face Golovkin because the fight is due. However, Sturm will likely slip in another optional title defense after the Geale fight and face a bottom 15 opponent, which has been Sturm’s habit when making optional defenses of his title.

Geale, 31, doesn’t have a lot of power and his jab isn’t on par with Sturm’s jab. That’s going to put Geale in a tough situation because he can’t beat a fighter like Sturm without a great jab or big power to make up for it. If Geale was a high volume puncher then he still do well against Sturm.

We saw Matthew Macklin and Martin Murray fight well against Sturm by throwing a lot of shots. However, Geale isn’t that kind of fighter. He’s more of a boxer who likes to bounce around on the outside and throw shots every now and then. It won’t work against Sturm, especially in Germany.