Geale wins WBA title against Sturm, but he won’t hold onto titles for long

By Boxing News - 09/01/2012 - Comments

Image: Geale wins WBA title against Sturm, but he won't hold onto titles for longBy Sean McDaniel: IBF middleweight champion Daniel Geale (28-1, 15 KO’s) took care of one of boxing’s longest reigning champions tonight by defeating WBA Super World middleweight champion Felix Sturm (37-3-2, 16 KO’s) by a 12 round split decision at the Kenig Pilsener Arena in Oberhausen, Germany.

Geale fell behind early as Sturm did a good job of connecting with jabs and combinations to control the action somewhat. It looked bad for Geale as the fight reached the midpoint. However, Geale seemed to get comfortable as he figured out what Sturm was doing in there and was able to get inside to land nice shots and outwork Sturm.

In the last three rounds the action was back and forth and it really difficult to tell who was winning the rounds. They could have gone either way, that’s how close it was.

The final scores were 116-112, 116-112 for Geale and 116-112 for Sturm.

Geale won’t get to enjoy the new WBA title for long, as he’s going to have to defends the belts against the winner of tonight’s fight between WBA World middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin and Grzegorz Proksa. The chances are high that he could end up losing that fight to one of those guys. I’d give a decent chance of beating Proksa if he avoid getting taken out by the Polish fighter’s big left hands, but against Golovkin he’ll be in big trouble all night long. That will punishing fight for Geale because Golovkin hits so hard.

Geale might be better off vacating the WBA title like Sturm was thought to be planning to do in order to avoid having to risk his neck against Proksa or Golokin. It might be the smarter thing for Geale to do.



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