By Yuri Tarantin

This past Saturday night in Oberhausen, Germany - 37-year-old Felix Sturm captured the WBA super middleweight championship with a controversial twelve round majority decision over 28-year-old unbeaten champion Fedor Chudinov of Russia. The scores were 115-113, 115-113, 114-114.

Chudinov was far more active and more accurate: Chudinov landed 297 accurate punches (from 1022 thrown), Sturm landed just 184 accurate punches (from 605 thrown).

A bigger controversy than the decision, is Chudinov fighting with a defective pair of gloves. The paint from the gloves began to peel and colored up both fighters. 

Promoter Dmitriy Luchnikov of Patriot is furious with the situation.

"Fedor is a great fighter, he is young and he has room to grow. This is a fact, that he did not lose the fight. The outcome was stolen. Fedor has good perspectives. He is well-known in the world of sport and beyond. However as strange it sounds, because of this situation more people will know him,”
Dmitriy stated.

"All of the German public and journalists started criticizing Felix Sturm after the fight, many of German journalist and boxing fans congratulated us with victory. It is justified. Sturm did not have the face of the winner and new champion. He looked like the loser - numerous bruises, swellings and markings. At the same time, the face of Fedor is the face of a winner. The face of a man who won the fight.”

"And some words about boxing gloves. For the first time, during ten years of active practice, the paint from gloves comes off during the fight. It is toxic and dangerous because there is a lot of sweat and water going to eyes and mouths of boxers during the fight. Was it paint? Is it sabotage or an accident? Who knows for sure. But what we know is that a well-known firm (Grant) prepared the gloves for the WBA championship title fight. Is it just some defect?"

"The company president [Elvis Grant] said to me that this was the first time this happened in their history. German functionaries and promoters are destroying boxing in Germany by themselves. There are no more good boxers that could win over the fans and they likely won't appear in the near future."

Yuri Tarantin covers boxing for Allboxing.ru.