By Dan Ambrose: Former WBA Super World middleweight champion Felix Sturm (37-3-2, 16 KO’s) thinks WBA World middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (25-0, 22 KO’s) is still a fighter that hasn’t really shown whether he’s as good as what some boxing fans think he is. Sturm isn’t sure himself and he thinks he’s got a lot to prove before he’ll consider him a good fighter.
Sturm said to RingTV “He [Golovkin] hasn’t proved himself and backed up his talk and especially his management talk…there was never a real offer from his side for a fight against me, it’s just talk. He has to prove himself and get known before a fight would make sense, both financially and from a boxing perspective.”
This is an interesting outlook for Sturm because a lot of boxing fans think he went out of his way to dodge a fight with Golovkin. If Sturm’s main problem with Golovkin is that he’s not proven, then why didn’t he fight him so he could prove himself? I don’t know that I buy Sturm’s reasons for not fighting Golovkin.
If Sturm was willing to fight Matthew Macklin, Ronald Hearns, Giovanni Lorenzo, and Martin Murray and not Golovkin, then his excuse about the fight with Golovkin not making financial sense don’t make sense. Murray, Macklin, Hearns, and Lorenzo weren’t big money fights for Sturm either. They were lesser threats than Golovkin, and yet Sturm still looked poor in several of those fights.
Sturm is still talking like he’s one of the major players at middleweight instead of a fighter on the downside that finally was exposed after having won a number of highly questionable decisions and received questionable draws in Germany.
Sturm faces Sam Soliman (42-11, 17 KO’s) this Friday night in an IBF middleweight title eliminator bout with the winner of the fight becoming the mandatory challenger for IBF champ Daniel Geale. If Sturm faces Geale in a rematch, the fight will likely take place in Germany, and it’s possible Sturm could get another gift decision.
If Sturm beats Soliman and Geale, it’s highly unlikely Sturm will face Golovkin. He kind of already gave his excuse for not fighting him by saying it doesn’t make financial sense. If doesn’t financial sense now with Sturm pretty much near the end of his career in terms of being a top fighter, then it probably never will make sense.
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