By Gregory Stangrit
Yesterday before a packed crowd in Oberhausen, Germany - 37-year-old German Felix Sturm captured the WBA super middleweight championship by winning a twelve round majority decision over previously unbeaten 28-year-old Russian beltholder Fedor Chudinov.
This was a rematch of last year's title clash, which Chudinov won with a twelve round decision. This time around, one judge decided that it was a draw, but the other two gave the victory to Sturm with an identical score of 115-113.
According to CompuBox, the Russian Boxer was far more active and more accurate: Chudinov landed 297 accurate punches (from 1022 thrown), Sturm landed just 184 accurate punches (from 605 thrown).
WBC cruiserweight champion Grigoriy Drozd was very upset with the official scores of the fight and felt Chudinov was robbed of his world title.
“When the judges gave the victory to a fighter - who lost the fight for sure – it is bad not just for the fighter who was brazenly and cynically judged. It is bad for all of boxing in general. Fans who have been waiting for the fight for a long time, they sit down in front of TV or come to arena and want to see a fair boxing match, a real sport competition. What did they see yesterday? Exactly what happened: one fighter was the winner, but the hand of another was raised. It is very bad for boxing. The fans can turn their backs on our sport. These types of decisions from the judges are disgracing and killing our sport, causing a lot of damage to the reputation of the sport," Drozd said.
Gregory Stangrit covers boxing for Allboxing.ru
