By Allan Fox: Former WBA Super World middleweight champion Felix Sturm (37-4-2, 16 KO’s) suffered a 12 round unanimous decision loss to #1 IBF Sam Soliman (43-11, 17 KO’s) in Dusseldorf, Germany on Friday night in an IBF middleweight eliminator bout.
Sam Soliman
Geale could face Soliman next rather than Golovkin
By Sean McDaniel: IBF/WBA middleweight champion Daniel Geale (28-1, 15 KO’s) may opt to defend his titles against his International Boxing Federation mandatory challenger 38-year-old fellow Australian Sam Soliman (42-11, 17 KO’s) next rather than face WBA World middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin.
Mundine Defeats Soliman
By Aaron Klein: WBA super middleweight champion Anthony Mundine (32-3, 23 KOs) beat for the third time fellow Australian Sam Soliman (35-11, 13 KOs) by a 12-round unanimous decision on Wednesday night at the Vodafone Arena, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Other than money, there wasn’t much reason for the fight to take place in the first place, considering that Mundine, 33, had already twice beaten Soliman. Additionally, Soliman is ranked a lowly #14 in the WBA super middleweight division, making this another bout in which Mundine failed to defend his title against his number one challenger.
As for the fight, it was close with Soliman outworking Mundine for most of the bout, hitting him with combinations to the head and body, and using a lot of movement to stay out of the way of Mundine’s big right hand shots. However, Soliman, like in the previous fights, tired out as the rounds progressed, letting the slower Mundine catch up to him more and more with right hands as the fight moved to the middle rounds. As usual, Mundine’s jab and right hand were excellent as he showed that he’s not lost a thing in terms of his power game. He caught Soliman with some especially big right hands in rounds four through eight, and then eleventh and twelfth. It seemed as if every time that Soliman would slow down, Mundine would land something really big. However, he never came close to really hurting him like last time, in which Mundine knocked Soliman down three times en route to stopping him in the 9th in March 2007.
Soliman Decisions Johnsen
In the bronze medal match of the reality series “The Contender,” Australian super middleweight Sam Soliman (35-10, 13 KOs) earned an easy six-round unanimous decision over American Wayne Johnsen (17-3, 9 KOs) on Tuesday night at the TD Banknorth Garden, in Boston, Massachusetts. The final judges’ scores were 60-54, 60-54 and 59-55, all for Soliman. On the line was $50,000, which Soliman earned for defeating the 30 year-old Johnsen. The outcome was never in doubt, as Soliman using his awkward and unconventional fighting style, along with a high volume of punches, to overwhelm Johnson with punches.
In the first two rounds, Soliman dominated Johnson from both the outside and inside, hitting him with long range shots, and then coming in close and tagging him with frequent uppercuts to the head. Johnson, a much less experienced fighter with only four years of professional fights on his record, found it hard to land any of his shots due to Soliman’s constant movement.