De La Hoya struggles with Sturm!
The Golden Boy earns his sixth world title in six different divisions!

Ringside report by Trinidad Guzman
Photos by Chris Cozzone

Oscar De La Hoya (37-3, 29KOS) was able to wrestle away the WBO middleweight crown via unanimous twelve round decision against little known Felix Sturm (20-1, 9KOS) Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Nevertheless, he had a much tougher time then many expected with the light hitting former champ, leaving many to question his ability to compete successfully in the middleweight class.

De La Hoya started the opening round of the bout banging severe thunder to the body of Sturm. The former champion remained calm and collected throughout the assault, displaying a tight defense that prevented De La Hoya from slamming him with those same shots upstairs.

While De La Hoya was doing serious damage to the body, Sturm quickly showcased his own arsenal of weapons, flicking a lighting quick jab that often snapped the “Golden Boy’s” head back.

It was clear from this single opening round that De La Hoya was going to be in for a dangerous fight. The former undefeated fighter had preached all along that he would bring his “A” game and he certainly did not disappoint.

The next few rounds were pretty much give and take. De La Hoya slowed a bit from his furious opening round, but still found enough energy to pop off quick combinations while Sturm was forced to cover up. The former champion was not without his own success, and seemed able to land his bread and butter left jab at will.

Along with his beautiful jab, he began to mix in lead left hooks and right hands, landing cleanly on De La Hoya whenever he let his hands go. By the third round Sturm had connected enough to bloody the nose of De La Hoya.

At this point in the fight the only criticism one could find for Sturm was in spots he allowed De La Hoya to slightly outwork him, attempting to steal the round in the last ten seconds.

In the fourth round of the fight De La Hoya was still focusing on banging the body while Sturm continued to stick his jab in the face of Oscar with great accuracy. De La Hoya proved that he has brought a little bit of power with him to the middleweight class, when a thudding left hook, close to rounds end, wobbled Sturm.

Even though he was briefly wobbled in the fourth round, Sturm came out for the fifth frame just as confident and willing to trade, as he had been all fight long. His willingness to mix it up allowed him to land a crushing left hook to the face of De La Hoya that had the packed MGM crowd on their feet.

De La Hoya began to show signs of slowing down in the seventh and eighth rounds, but used his ring experience to fight in spurts, trying to steal the rounds. Sturm was able to land flush on De La Hoya all night long, causing slight swelling to his left eye. However, he often had moments where he would allow De La Hoya to rest without pressing the action.

His tentative spots within the fight allowed De La Hoya to try and steal the round with a flashy four and five punch combination to the head and body.

Sturm came out for round eleven in the southpaw stance and quickly began to land his straight left hand with great precision. The move to southpaw was an excellent change of strategy for Sturm because throughout the fight he could not miss De La Hoya’s beak with his long left jab. When he switched to southpaw, he was still landing with the left hand, but it was now his power hand.

After popping De La Hoya in the mug a few times with his power left hands, the “Golden Boy” quickly answered back with his own furious combinations that had Sturm covering up. However, Sturm would not wilt and responded by landed a crushing body shot that stopped De La Hoya in his tracks.

Both fighters were determined to win this bout and they demonstrated serious heart, determination, and skill from the very first round.

The final round of the fight was more of the same. De La Hoya sucked it up and began right where he left off in the eleventh, throwing wicked combination shots to the head of Sturm. Not to be out done, Sturm fired back with his own right hands and the two traded evenly as they had done most of the night.

Immediately after the bell sounded to end the twelfth and final round, the talk began to circulate between the different media personalities about who had won the fight. Most in attendance seemed to favor De La Hoya by a point or two, but there were just as many well respect journalists who had Sturm winning the fight by the same margins.

In the end, the official scoring of the bout would be 115-113, 115-113, and 115-113 all in favor of Oscar De La Hoya. With the very close unanimous decision win, De La Hoya is now headed for a September 18th showdown with undisputed middleweight champion of the world, Bernard Hopkins.

Hopkins makes 18th defense!
The Executioner retains the WBC/IBF/WBA belts and sets up showdown with De La Hoya!

Ringside report by Chris Bronte
Photos by Chris Cozzone

Bernard Hopkins- making the eighteenth defense of his middleweight title- labored to a unanimous decision over number one contender Robert Allen. This was there third meeting - the first one ending in a no–contest and the second in a seven round TKO for Hopkins. Leading up to tonight Allen had been talking a good fight and even at yesterday’s weigh-in baited Hopkins over the scales. However, once in the ring Allen seemed to be at a loss. In fact both fighters seemed overly cautious in the opening round with Hopkins skirting around the ring with Allen in pursuit , although never really trying to close the distance.

The second round followed much the same pattern and soon the crowd was heard booing loudly as neither fighter was landing anything of any note. The only bit of action came when Hopkins span Allen on the ropes and reached round to land a couple of hooks in his face.

Again in the third round both fighters were showing each other too much respect. Hopkins would lead with a right hand on his southpaw foe, but would miss frequently and immediately clinch which made for a poor spectacle indeed. Allen for his part was throwing punches but he was always too far away as he was unable to cut the ring off from the backpeddling Hopkins.

The forth stanza continued in much the same vein much to the displeasure of the crowd who were becoming impatient with the lack of action. Allen did have some success and landing enough leather to probably earn him the round.

The fifth round saw Allen lose a point for low blows which seemed a little unfair as referee Joe Cortez had not been terribly explicit in his previous warnings. Other than this the round was again devoid of any serious action.

By the sixth round Hopkins began to move less and set himself to throw some shots. He was particularly effective with the lead right hand and landed several during this round. However the action was still anything but scintillating.

Things got interesting early in the seventh when a looping right hand from Hopkins landed flush in Allen’s face and put him down really hard. One wondered whether Allen would beat the count, which he did , but he was clearly very hurt as the action continued. As soon as referee Joe Cortez signaled for the action to restart Hopkins was all over Allen throwing punches from all angles while pinning a helpless Allen on the ropes. Cortez was taking a very close look at Allen who was seemingly out on his feet, but to his credit Allen began to throw back and made it out of the round.

As the eighth round began one fully expected for Hopkins to renew his assault which he did landing a lovely lead right , but Allen quickly retaliated landing a beautiful left hand. Hopkins foolishly dropped his hands and shook his head mockingly at which point Allen landed an even better left hand which would surely have dropped most men. This time Hopkins was hurt and was pursued around the ring by Allen, but he managed to avoid most of the ensuing barrage and made it out of the round comfortably. This was to be Allen’s last real success in the fight as he for the remaining rounds he was content just to follow Hopkins meekly around the ring. Hopkins by this stage was in full control but he would still not press the action as much as he might as Allen really looked ready to go. In the twelth round Hopkins did finish strongly and rocked Allen on a couple of occasions but refused to follow up perhaps fearing getting caught by Allen’s potent left hand. At the end of twelve interesting, albeit unsatisfying rounds, the judges scored unanimously in favour of Hopkins: 119-107, 119-107 and 117-109. After the fight Hopkins admitted that it was a sub par performance and manfully confessed that he had been unusually nervous, citing that he was thinking of his proposed fight with De la Hoya and was determined not to be upset like Roy Jones had been only weeks before. With this win Hopkins improves his record to 44-2-1, 31 KOs and sets himself up for a mega showdown with De la Hoya in September. Allen fell to 36-5,27 KOs.