By Eric Thomas: Former WBA middleweight champion Felix Sturm (37-3-2, 16 KO’s) will be back in the ring on July 6th against little known #4 IBF Predrag Radosevic (27-0, 9 KO’s) in a scheduled 12 round bout at the Westfalenhalle, Dortmund, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.
Sturm, 34, is coming off of a 12 round unanimous decision loss to Sam Soliman from last February. Sturm lucked out when the results were overturned and changed to a no contest after Soliman tested positive for a banned substance.
Soliman is appealing the positive test with the International Boxing Federation. For this reason, Sturm’s fight with Radosevic isn’t an IBF eliminator. Instead, it’s more of a stay busy fight for Sturm.
Sturm wants to get another crack at IBF champion Daniel Geale, who beat him by a 12 round split decision last September. That fight was extremely close and it could have gone either way. Sturm hurt his case for winning the fight by gassing out in the last three rounds of the fight.
As for Sturm’s opponent on July 28th, there’s really not much known about the 28-year-old Radosevic other than the fact that the IBF is the only sanctioning body that has him ranked in their top 15.
You would think that with an unbeaten 27-0 record like Radosevic has that all of the sanctioning bodies would have him ranked in their top 15, but that’s not the case and it’s easy to see why when you look at the types of opponents he’s faced during his 9-year pro career.
Radosevic’s management has somehow gotten him to a 27-0 record and a #4 IBF ranking without facing one top tier opponent during his nine year career. It’s pretty surprising and also kind of sad because you don’t like to see fighters waste 9 years of their career fighting nothing but poor opposition and building up an inflated resume based on nothing.
Sturm should be able to easily win this fight unless he runs out of gas after the first few rounds like he did in the Soliman fight. Radosevic doesn’t have any power, so Sturm doesn’t have to worry about having his chin tested in this fight. He just needs to make sure that he doesn’t fade like he did in his last two fights against Geale and Soliman.
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