By Sean Waisglass
and pic by Tom Hogan: When boxers move down in weight, it's usually a sign that things haven't been going well. Sweating out extra pounds and shrinking portions on the plate is arduous business, and not something a guy's going to do unless he really needs to.
After an admirable but rough 2004, Oscar De La Hoya has announced he'll be squeezing back down to welterweight after having been fighting north of that scale mark for nearly three years.
The knee jerk reaction is that Pound for Pound middleweight king Bernard Hopkins convinced the Golden Boy to head south when he overwhelmed him in their September bout, stopping him in the ninth round. But there should be little doubt that Hopkins' fight-ending left hook to the body was merely the proverbial last straw following a year that saw De La Hoya fight 20 and a half rounds that were some of the least successful of his career.
The first 12 of those came against Felix Sturm in June, in the bout Secondsout.com's readers have voted Worst Decision of the Year.
The fight, which took place at the MGM Grand in Vegas was a lead-up to the proposed mega-fight between Hopkins and De La Hoya. Hopkins fought Robert Allen on the double title bill, defending his unified titles while in Hagler-esque fashion, waiting for a name-brand lower weight fighter to make his way up to the middleweight bracket.
Sturm, a seldom-seen Germany-based Universum boxer, was standing in the way. At 20-0 and 25 years of age, Sturm was largely an unknown quantity, but in a brief montage of clips shown a couple of times on preceding ESPN2 Friday Night Fights broadcasts, he had shown off some eyebrow-raising skills. The full-sized middleweight fought out of a high guard and a slight hunch, shot out an impressive quick and stiff jab, and with ease and fluidity, hooked and threw uppercuts off of it. In fact, he looked a lot like his admitted Californian idol De La Hoya circa his late 140lbs and early 147lbs reign.
De La Hoya, 31 years old and notching in at 37-4, fought Sturm for the German's WBO title, the one belt missing from Hopkins' collection. It was Oscar's first fight at middleweight, and he didn't wear the extra weight well. He had declined to take off his shirt during the weigh-in - traditionally a bad sign. Soft around the middle, De La Hoya looked the least fit he'd ever been inside the ring.
And to make matters worse, his belly wasn't the only thing looking soft: when De La Hoya came out in the first round and started ripping multi punch combos to the natural middleweight Sturm's body and head, it was hard not to notice how little they affected his opponent.
De La Hoya, who fought his first three years as a pro around the lightweight limit, was putting on a display that was reminiscent of a hokey movie boxing cliché: that scene played for broad laughs when a smaller, weaker guy fights a larger foe, and whales away at his goliath only to have the big lug shrug or smile in amusement before laying into his overmatched opponent.
And Sturm did just that, laying into his smaller, weaker opponent round after round with a stiff jab that rocked Oscar's head back and bloodied his Golden nose, and regularly followed it up with crisp, hard power shots. Sturm kept up the assault steadily throughout their 12 rounds while Oscar threw punches in bunches, particularly in the form of body combos. But Sturm didn't tire from De La Hoya's constant rib shots, although throwing them appeared to be wearing down Oscar.
While Sturm kept his guard up and his hands moving in the second half, De La Hoya steadily slowed down. It seemed like a doomed effort as the underpowered Oscar threw less punches, evaporating his only chance of winning by impressing the judges with his work rate and aggression. Meanwhile Sturm was deftly hooking off the jab, throwing mean uppercuts, and dropping in his quick right hand over the dropped-left defensive stance that Oscar had adopted from trainer Floyd Mayweather Sr.
Knowing the pull De La Hoya might have with the judges (being a beloved Vegas wonder kid and all) and knowing that the Hopkins fight loomed overhead (a genuine megafight no less) it was expected that Oscar might get the close rounds.
And in that context, Sturm did seem to take his time and look for the right spots more than you would expect from an unknown underdog contesting a potential career-launching bout. But round after round, as the Golden boy became more red faced (both literally from swelling and figuratively from frustration), and Sturm kept craftily waiting for openings to launch his noticeably harder punches, it looked likely that even if Oscar were to get some gift rounds, the bum decision would still end up being a draw at best - because he was getting beat.
De La Hoya smartly left it all in the ring in the 12th, going all out and letting his hands fly, and ended up grabbing the round on all three judges cards - and as it turned out to the surprise of many, the decision as well. Oscar may have been busy enough to make it a close fight, but it was pretty clear in most eyes who the more effective boxer was that night. Even those who argued that De La Hoya threw enough flurries with bad intentions to force the action and snatch a handful of 10 point nods were still hard pressed to propose more than a draw as the end result.
Although they may be flawed in both method and meaning, Compubox's handy punch-stats are still a worthwhile tool in helping to assess a boxing match, and when the numbers were crunched, they seemed to reflect what most saw: Sturm landed 234 of 541 punches, nearly half of which were his stabbing jab, while De La Hoya landed 188 or 792, staying busy but not accurate. Sturm had connected at a very good rate of 43%, while De La Hoya only had success with 24% of his shots, many of which were the lighter punches thrown in the ring that night.
However, judges Dave Moretti, Paul Smith, and Mike Glienna had numbers of their own to reflect their thoughts on the matter: 115-113 De La Hoya all around, seven rounds to five.
In a thick accent, the articulate and classy Sturm calmly stated in his post-fight interview with HBO's Larry Merchant that both he and the fans knew who the better man was that night. Curiously, De La Hoya didn't contradict his opponent in his own wrap up talk. "Everything went wrong," stated the downtrodden-looking winner. "I stepped in the ring, and 'boom!' - nothing."
Sturm filed protests with both the WBO and the Nevada State Athletic Commission, but the best a protest can usually do in boxing is wrangle a mandatory rematch, and with the Hopkins fight already lined up, it was pretty obvious that wouldn't happen.
After his scare against Sturm, a noticeably worried De La Hoya spoke gravely during the lead-up to the Hopkins bout, admitting he was not at his best at the higher weight. He also trained with that lesson in mind - one sternly taught to him by Sturm - and came at 155lbs for his unified middleweight challenge.
It seems pretty safe to say that after having the confidence to not only step up another division and take on the grizzled and fearsome Hopkins, but take a tune-up against a live body, De La Hoya got a 160lb dose of reality from Sturm that took the wind out of his sails even before he stepped into the ring against the Executioner.
Although he may have lost the '0' in his loss column, Sturm's impressive televised showing against De La Hoya has firmly established him in the middleweight mix, which has recently regained it's appeal with the comeback of boxing giant Felix Trinidad, the return to the division of all-action slugger Antwun Echols, and the promise of rising contenders like US Olympian Jermain Taylor, the quirky Howard Eastman, and the dangerous Kingsley Ikeke.
Secondsout assistant editor Anthony Evans caught up with Sturm, who has logged a couple more victories this year since the De La Hoya bout, and let him know about his indirect awarding of a people's decision victory. "Thanks a lot to the people who voted for me in this strange decision award," replied Sturm. "It is my second award this year (Boxer of the year in German magazine Boxsport) and I do feel I should get less awards and more titles next year."
"But this one shows that everybody has seen who the real winner was on June 5 at the MGM. I will fight for the world title in 2005. I am still young enough to wait for the championship and the next awards to come."
Photo supplied by www.hoganphotos.com
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