German boxing star Felix Sturm knocked out his countryman and stable mate Bert Schenk in the main event of a Universum boxing show in Leverkusen, Germany. By finishing Schenk with two right hands 59 seconds before the end of round two Sturm improved his record to 23-1 with 11 knockouts. Schenk dropped to 36-2 with 23 knockouts. Based on Sturm’s strong performance against de la Hoya on June 5, 2004, and his three consecutive victories thereafter, including knockouts over the former world champions Schenk and Cherifi, Felix Sturm is now the logical and most deserving challenger to undisputed middleweight world champion Bernard Hopkins.

Whereas the next big fight may be in reach for Felix Sturm, for Schenk the end of his career may be in sight. The duel against his stable mate was Schenk’s last chance to get back into world title contention. The man from Berlin was holding the WBO middleweight title in 1999 but had to vacate it after one successful defense when he tore his achiles tendon in training. Schenk failed to regain the WBO crown when he was stopped in round 6 by the new champion Armand Krajnc in October 2000. Since then he scored twelve straight victories before losing to Sturm tonight.

Felix Sturm held the same WBO middleweight belt from September 2003 to June 2004 making one successful defense before losing the crown to de la Hoya in Las Vegas.

Sturm does have high ranking positions at major sanctioning world boxing bodies. He is WBC #4, IBF #3 and WBO #1. His victim Schenk came into the ring as WBA #3 contender.

Dimitrenko comes back from knockdown to score unanimous decision

In the co-main event in Leverkusen undefeated 22-year-old heavyweight prospect Alexander Dimitrenko scored a unanimous decision (98:91, 98:91, 98:92) over American Chris Koval over ten rounds to lift the vacant IBF Youth title.

The 6-foot-7 German based Ukrainian Dimitrenko was knocked down in round two from a right hook landed by Koval but came back to improve his record to 18-0 with 11 knockouts. Koval dropped to 20-2 with 16 knockouts. Both Dimitrenko and Koval weighed 249 lb. for their clash.

All Results:

WBO Int. Middleweight Championship
Felix Sturm TKO2 (2:01) Bert Schenk

IBF Youth Heavyweight Championship
Alexander Dimitrenko W10 Chris Koval
(98:91, 98:91, 98:92)

Light Heavyweight
Stipe Drews KO1 (2:04) Kevin Butts

Super Middleweight:
Lukas Wilaschek W6 Azedine Djerrari

Flyweight:
Julia Sahin TKO5 (0:56) Viktoria Varga

Cruiserweight:
Mark Hendem TKO4 (2:58) Csaba Olah

Heavyweight:
Egon Roth TKO1 (2:17) Karl Evans

Jr. Middleweight:
Marco Schulze TKO3 (2:38) Joseph Sovijus

Welterweight:
Marco Cattikas W4 Marcen Gierke
(40:36, 40:36, 40:36)

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