Felix Sturm

Apparently he lost in a fight for Froch's WBA title last night in a split decision against a 12-fight novice. I am guessing he could only afford to pay off one of the judges...

Hopefully now that's the last we see of him in any title fights. I think he's been "done" for a while now.

He will still get fights with Abraham and Stieglitz

God when will Sturm finally just disappear? Thought he'd go away after ODLH!!!

He's just going to turn into "an opponent" now. He'll still be fighting in 10 years time on televised cards in Germany.

I reckon he'll take as long to retire as Holyfield did.

Annoying thing is he'll still get really good paydays as for some weird reason he's loved in Germany.

He's a bit long in the tooth now but he was never as bad as some as you are making out, he was a solid world level operator for a good many years, the decisions against Murray and Macklin weren't shockers either. He won't be remembered as a middleweight champion of any real note but his longevity is reasonable.

In some ways getting jobbed against Oscar was the best thing that ever happened to Sturm. He's probably contested the most world title fights in history without ever facing someone considered to be the bonadife champion in his division or without ever being any kind of candidate for that accolade himself, but the wave of sympathy he received for the De la Hoya farce has probably contributed to him being given a bit more leeway than most others on that front in terms of being able to tuck himself away in Germany racking up average defences for the sake of pure statistics.

Hopkins, Taylor, Pavlik, Martinez etc - a few lineal champions have come and gone over the past dozen years and Sturm, to my knowledge, has never given a real indication that he was interested in getting in there with any of them. Abraham's stock fell pretty rapidly from 2010 onwards, but at least he was vocal in calling out Pavlik when they were both at 160 and then took a punt on the Super Six tournament up at 168.

Sturm is a decent fighter and has been in some enjoyable scraps, particularly the Geale one, albeit he lost it. But I think it's just that complete lack of ambition which has made people tire of him more than anything else. He's only a drop in a sea of alphabet titlists who have never gone near a top divisional fighter or shown form of that nature themselves, sure, but I'm hard pressed to think of many (if any at all) others who have managed to draw it out across twelve years and probably something like twenty-five world title fights.

He'll have a couple of quid in the bank put it that way. I didn't give him much of a chance against Chudinov on Sat being honest. When you start losing to the likes of Soliman, your days at the world elite are numbered. I suppose he could still have a few paydays in Germany. Abraham will be the one he's clambouring for...