The MW Division is in a sad state!

Within a year you should excpect fernando Guerrero the WBO NABO MW Champ to move into the title picture...Get excited!!!!!

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[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Cu4LFTkCWU[/ame]

 

The true state of the division depends on what Martinez, Williams, and Pavlik decide to do. These guys are all willing to fight each other, and there is no boring fight between these guys. It could take over a year for them to sort things out. By that time some of the young guns will be ready to step up.

 

If Martinez and Williams fight at 154 from now and Pavlik moves up the division will be on hold until the young guns progress for now there is sturm sylvester zbik karmazin

 

It's been in a sad state since the first Taylor - Pavlik fight, where we had a classic fight. Ever since, Pavlik has been proven to be overrated, could have fought Arthur Abraham and had a middleweight mega bout, but due to obvious reasons it did not happen. Arthur fights super middleweights and Kelly is fighting LMWs.

Pavlik and Arum are the ones to blame, hopefully Martinez will fight Williams next and then the winner of that bout fights someone up and coming. :good

 

Very true. Martinez has 15 days from Saturday to decide which title he wants to keep. My feeling is that if he vacates the middleweight title, Pavlik will move up. That would leave the division in horrible condition.

I just don't know how the legalities work out. Pavlik has 30 days to activate the rematch clause. I would think that clause is legally binding. I don't know if Martinez can vacate without getting sued.

 

Pavlik won't move up, what is there for him at 168lbs? Bute is a nightmare for him, and the super middleweight tournament have all these guys locked away from fighting outsiders for at least a good year. Arthur Abraham called Pavlik out again and again at 160lbs, but was forced to move up to 168lbs.

Martinez is a good two weight champion, but 154lbs is his home, and hopefully he goes back down, as he is already small for that division, let alone 160lbs.

Pavlik has nowhere to go, if he's lucky Paul Williams even looks his way after getting shafted like he was.

Pavlik does not deserve to hold a single belt.

 

If he moves up then there will be no rematch unless he thinks he can beat an even bigger Pavlik though his speed will be heavily reduced by weight. Pavlik should put it behind him and challenge Bute or Stieglitz if he beats whats left out by the Super 6 he can develope build confidenc and take on the Super 6 guys

 

Sturm got the win against Ghevor but very few people who watched the fight thought he actually beat him. A lot of people thoght Griffin beat him first time round too but I haven't seen the whole fight.

In any case he showed no willingness to fight Pavlik or Abraham and guys like Pittman, Sato and Alcoba should never have been allowed to fight for world titles at the times he fought them. They basically only got their rankings by winning lightly regarded regional titles that were affilliated to the WBA.

His reign hasn't exactly been a credit to boxing though my respect for him did increase a bit when he took on a risky fight with Ghevor.

On topic though I agree with those who say that there are a lot of good prospects comming through at middleweight and some good fights to come with Pavlik, Williams and Martinez in the short term.

 

Well, a lot of people don´t know how to score a fight properly. If coming forward, throwing manypity-patter punches of which 90% land on the gloves of your opponent means you win a fight, yeah, then Ghevor won. But since it doesn´t Sturm´s superior defence, harder and clearer punches won it for him. It was close because Sturm was too inactive at times and Ghevor won those rounds on sheer activity but that´s it.
The draw in the first Griffin fight was the right decision. Shitty fight and neither deserved to win. Sturm beat him clearly in the rematch, schooled him at times.

BS. Sturm stated many times he want to face them. Many times. His promoter didn´t want him to. It´s Universum, they make their fighters champs and then try to keep them away from danger. Kind like Frank Warren does. That´s why Sturm parted his way with Universum.
Where is the problem with having easy in between fights between hard fights?
Sturm´s reign is better than Pavlik´s wasm that´s for sure.

It certainly wasn´t something special but it wasn´t bad either. Look at most of the opponents of Calzaghe or Hopkins during their reigns. Weren´t better and if not by much.
And no, I don´t want to say Sturm is a great fighter. He isn´t but he get´s bad rep that he does not deserve just because he lives in the wrong country.

 

beside Gevor they are all bum's or old (Castillejo) and Gevor was robbed against Sturm

 

Demetrius Andrade is the future of the middleweight division.

 

The way I remember it Ghevor landed a lot of body shots that should have been scoring punches and Strum just stood with his gaurd up for long periods looking like he didn't want to fight. I didn't see any punch stats or anything but my feeling at the time was Ghevor must have outlanded him as well as dictated the tempo of fight.
A few posters I have respect for on here were giving it to Ghevor by 8 rounds and things, I think I'd given him it by 4. I actually had a bet on Strum winning on points so I wasn't complaining at the time but was shocked when Strum got the decision.

OK I don't speak German so I'll have to take your word for that. All I ever heard from him though was that he didn't want to fight in America again after Oscar, so Pavlik was unlikely, and the only time I heard him say he'd fight Abraham was when he called Abrahams bluff after AA said he'd fight him for free - knowing fine well that he wouldn't.
Hopefully he can get involved in some better fights now he's away from Universum.

I'm neither pro nor anti Pavlik and I agree his level of opposition was disappointing. What does Strum less credit than Pavlik though is that Pavliks weakest opponents were his mandatories whereas, apart from Ghevor, Strums strongest opponents were his mandatories.
It would have looked much better if Sato or Pittman had fought even one other ranked contender before Strum fought them.

It's a fair point about Calzaghe and Hopkins though. There has been a distinct lack of quality opponents at middleweight recently just as there was at SMW for a lot of Calzaghes reign and I guess you can't fight who isn't there.

The big disappointmemt was that none of Pavlik, Abraham or Strum fought each other when they held the belts. Of the three, Abraham was the one that seemed most willing to fight the others.

I have never had anything against German fighters, my gripe with Strum is more to with how much of a joke the WBA have been in recent years and Strum seemed to capitalise on that fighting the Pittmans and Satos.

 

For the sake of the division I hope Martinez gives Pavlik the rematch instead of vacating.

Middleweight is one of the few divisions where there is a direct and easily tracable lineage back to all 4 major titles. If Martinez vacates, it will screw that up.

 

Thats more of an oversight on your part rather than a vaccum in the division.

 

I agree with you I thought Ghevor won. Sturm was just trapped in the corner unable to do much but hold his guard up for long periods of time. Ghevor is definately a tricky one, he seems to always be able to get his opponent trapped in the corners only able to hold their guard up for extended periods of time. Wish I could see more of him.