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Felix Sturm reasserted his claim on the WBA middleweight title tonight with a dominating performance at Lanxess Arena in Cologne, Germany in front of an adoring hometown audience.
The Leverkusen born Cologne resident bounced back from 14 months away from competition and met the challenge posed by Dominican Republic native Giovanni Lorenzo.
During the pre-fight media buildup to this bout, Lorenzo talked confidently about his abilities and chances to win the contest but the 29 year old New Yorker was never able to put those words into concrete action.
Sturm took his time getting reacquainted with the sweet science while he waited for Lorenzo’s early round energy to subside, picking off the challenger’s efforts with a sound defense.
By the midway point Sturm had been in control for a few rounds and was boxing beautifully, scoring with brief combinations that scored points and also kept Lorenzo from developing any kind of offense.
Lorenzo did try and reverse the tide of the bout but Sturm was never caught with anything of consequence and managed to stifle whatever momentum the challenger had with the experience gained from his long stretch of title fights.
Sturm sees off Lorenzo on scores of 118-111 and 117-111 twice, improving to 34-2-1 (14) and retaining the WBA middleweight belt for the seventh occasion of his second reign.
Lorenzo drops to 29-3 (21), with all three losses coming either in world title fights or title eliminators.
Sturm has reportedly taken promotional control over his career and it will be interesting to see of he upgrades the caliber of his opposition in the future. The WBA rankings don’t hold much hope for that at the moment but a good challenge and unification opportunity for Sturm would be WBC champion Sergio Martinez.
