Sturm defeats Gevor via unanimous robbery

Post-Fight Analysis

Bad Left Hook (The SB Nation Boxing Blog)
July 11, 2009

by Brickhaus

In Germany this afternoon, Khoren Gevor obliterated Felix Sturm, and
due to completely incomprehensible scoring, lost the
fight. Officially, Sturm won a unanimous decision, 117-111, 115-113
and 115-113. With the forces of the boxing universe conspiring against
him, Gevor was able to get inside on Sturm at will, and just unload on
his body in the early rounds. In the third, he even appeared to score
a flash knockdown that the referee ruled as a slip. The stockier Gevor
completely controlled on the inside, but within about 10 seconds of
getting there, the ref would step in every time and push the fighters
about 2 meters apart from each other. Was there holding? No. Was there
headbutting? Heads were touching, but there wasn’t anything that
looked like a butt, and neither fighter got cut. So why was the
referee doing this? I don’t know – I guess he was inventing his own
rules.

In the middle rounds, Gevor slowed down his workrate a bit, but he
still appeared to be throwing about 80 punches a round. After about
the 7th round, Gevor appeared to even control the action when they
were on the outside. Despite being the longer fighter, Sturm just
refused to use his jab to keep Gevor off of him, and Gevor was able to
bounce in, land a few jabs, land a few body shots, and bounce back
outside of Sturm’s range. Rounds 8 and 9 were the only rounds I scored
for Sturm, as Gevor really started to slow, and Sturm started to
finally land more effective shots. That, however, was short lived, and
Gevor came back out with a vengeance in rounds 10 and 11, resuming his
high workrate and just pushing Sturm around the ring on the
inside. The 12th was a bit of a toss-up, although, both fighters did
look like they were still trying to win the fight.

Throughout the entire fight, Gevor probably threw twice as many
punches as Sturm. He controlled the action for all but one round. He
land blocked about 85% of what Sturm threw at him, and although Sturm
probably blocked around the same percentage of punches, the sheer
volume of Gevor’s output means that he landed many many more punches
than Sturm. Gevor would come forward in a workmanlike manner, pounding
away, one or two shots at a time. Maybe twice a round, Sturm would
take a step back, land a flurry, and the extremely pro-Sturm crowd
would go wild. Still, winning 10 seconds of each round doesn’t mean
that he won a majority of the rounds, especially when Gevor was never
so much as stunned all fight.

On the bright side, this means we probably get to see Kelly Pavlik put
a loss on Sturm’s record. If Gevor had won, Pavlik would have been
left without a dance partner. With Sturm winning, Abraham vacating and
Williams unavailable due to Bob Arum’s vendetta against Al Haymon,
Sturm is the only fight that really makes sense for Pavlik, and the
chatter about that fight is too loud at this point for the fight not
to happen. I can’t wait for that fight to happen, just so I can see
Sturm flat on his back. Sure, Sturm got robbed in his own fight
against Oscar de la Hoya many years ago, but that mojo has just
carried too far at this point.

06/sturm-defeats-gevor-via-unanimous