Former long-time World Middleweight Champion Felix Sturm (39-4-3) faces undefeated Fedor Chudinov (12-0) for the interim WBA World title at Super Middleweight in Frankfurt Germany this weekend. Several Bookmakers Sportsbook has Sturm as the (-205) favorite heading into fight week, with the comeback on Chudinov sitting at (-205). There is no over/under line posted. Sturm had a rough going in 2014, going (0-1-1) and in his last outing, he had a Split Draw with rival countryman Robert Steiglitz. Sturm captured the WBA World belt at Middleweight back in April of 2007, and he held it until September of 2012 when he dropped a split decision to Daniel Geale. In his comeback fight against Australian veteran Sam Soliman, he lost again, but that fight was made into a no contest when Soliman failed a drug test for a diuretic. Sturm appeared to bounce back when he won the IBF World middleweight title in December of 2013 when he stopped Darren Barker, but he lost the belt six months later in a re-match with Soliman. If you leave the no-contest as a loss to Soliman, he is 2-3-1 in his last 6 fights. Which might make this a bad time for Sturm to run into the 27-year old from Russia. He has a long amateur background that saw him win a World Championship in the under 19 year old division. In the pro ranks, he has just twelve fights, and he is undefeated winning 10 of them by KO. Chudinov started his career off back in 2009 with a series of fights in California before returning to Russia to continue building his record. In June of 2014, he took a fight in the Dominican Republic where he outclassed his opponent and earned the third round stoppage. Fighting Sturm in Germany will certainly put Chudinov in hostile territory, but he is typically stoic as Russian fighters tend to be, and his amateur background could give him experience against a hostile environment. The co-feature fight, which has not appeared onSeveral Bookmakers yet with a line, features the interim WBA title at Super Welterweight up for grabs as Jack Culcay (19-1) faces Maurice Weber (21-1-1). The full WBA Super Welterweight title is currently held by Cuba’s Erislandy Lara, so the winner of the all-German affair between Culcay and Weber could end up in a unification bout. Between Culcay and Weber, Culcay has the stronger level of competition and he has regional and European level titles on his resume. As for Weber, the combined record of his last three opponents is a (55-82-4), and this is his first match that is scheduled for 12 rounds.
