NEWFLASH: Sturm opponent named Trinidad???....Bob Arum still being sour...
Sturm to face Cherifi!
November 24, 2004
448 days after capturing the WBO middleweight world title Felix Sturm returns to the place of biggest victory: The Estrel Convention Center of Berlin where he entered the ring as a late substitute in September 2003 and beat reigning 160 lb. champion Hector Velaczo by split decision over twelve rounds.
In the same arena Sturm now faces former WBC champion Hassine Cherifi on December 4 in the chief supporter of the European heavyweight championship between Luan Krasniqi and Timo Hoffmann.
ZDF will broadcast live in Germany at 22:00.
"I have best memories on the Estrel. That was my night," Felix Sturm said. After winning the crown of the WBO he defended it successfully once, then faced Oscar de la Hoya in Las Vegas and lost his title by way of a controversial decision in a memorable showdown on June 5, 2004.
"Everybody saw that I dominated de la Hoya. I want to become world champion again," the 25-year-old Hamburg based German stated. "To accomplish that I have to beat Hassine Cherifi convincingly."
This won’t be just a ten round walkover. Sturm’s coach Michael Timm considers the highly experienced Cherifi, 35-10-1 (20), as "extremely awkward." Among others the Frenchman faced the reigning or former world champions Felix Trinidad, Robin Reid, William Joppy and Harry Simon. Cherifi has fought for a world title five times in three different sanctioning bodies and in two different weight classes: middleweight and super middleweight.
On May 2, 1998, Cherifi won the WBC middleweight crown against Keith Holmes but lost it in the rematch to Holmes right away. Cherifi is also a former European champion.
Felix Sturm knows that rumors about a fight between him and Felix Trinidad already circulate on the internet and in Puerto Rican newspapers.
"It’s too early to speak about what may happen next year," Sturm, 21-1 (9), said. "For now I just want to win, and win again, then win again. I want to be faster than the others, land the better combinations and at the same time not get hit. I’m an evasive technician. That’s what I want to show."
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Promoter Bob Arum is hard at work this week, setting the stage for Saturday’s epic clash between WBC super featherweight champion Erik Morales and former champion and archrival Marco Antonio Barrera. This promotion is somewhat unusual as press conferences, interviews, the weigh-in and fight night are all wrapped around the Thanksgiving holiday (the press room will even be open for a few hours on Turkey day). Fightnews recently spoke to the legendary boxing promoter about Saturday’s fight, his future plans (no he's not retiring), Erik Morales, Floyd Mayweather, Oscar De La Hoya, Bernard Hopkins and much more.
On his future
What I'm doing is concentrating on the big shows and putting insights to creative ideas and promotions and enjoying myself. I think that I have a lot to contribute. Erik Morales promotions, Cotto promotions, things like that. Handling the finances for the company. Todd duBoef is coming on. He's taking over more and more. Eventually he'll be doing almost everything.
On Erik Morales:
Well, Erik is one of our prime superstars. We're very proud of him. He's been a loyal guy, he's been great to promote, and a great, great relationship. If all of our fighters were like Erik Morales, life would be wonderful.
Assuming he beats Barrera and emerges fresh from November 27th, he has a date from HBO Pay-Per-View February 12th and we'll put him against maybe Mighty Mike Anchondo, who is now promoted by Team Freedom. Maybe we'll put in Carlos Hernandez and Jesus Chavez should be ready to come back so it'll make a nice card there. I would like to have Erik fight at least three times next year. All these guys should keep busy. Mix them and match them. I don't like the idea of them just sitting around and just waiting for HBO or Showtime dates and fighting just a couple of times a year. They should be more active, three, even four times a year. That's what we're going to try to do.
We're looking forward to Morales having a smashing victory on November 27th and then going on to fight the winner of Pacquiao-Marquez. Morales wants to keep busy and he feels he can go all the way up to 140 pounds.
On Oscar De La Hoya:
Oscar looks like he may have some difficulty finding opponents. His popularity has slipped as his record has. He hasn't had a significant performance since the Vargas fight a couple years ago. You have to perform to keep your popularity at a peak, and if you start losing and giving poor performances your popularity erodes. That's the way it is and that's the way it always has been. Anybody can licked by a Bernard Hopkins but his performance against Felix Sturm was inexcusable. The way he came into the ring, the way he prepared for that fight, the way he looked physically. It's inexcusable.
On Bernard Hopkins:
Bernard is a very difficult guy to promote because Bernard’s philosophy is different from the usual promoter’s philosophy. Most promoters want to be compensated for their time and effort to risk a promotion. In other words, they want to make a buck. The usual argument is "how much of a buck?" But Bernard's philosophy is the promoter should pay a price for the privilege of promoting a Bernard Hopkins fight. I don't think many promoters agree. That’s why they always run into difficulties with Mr. Bernard. I haven't been in this business since 1966 by paying a premium price to a fighter for the privilege of promoting him. I don't care if it's the 20th title defense or the first title defense, I don't pay any fighter for the privilege of promoting him. Other people may, but not me. I don’t do business that way.
Guys like Bernard are pretty unique, but there's always been people, athletes who have attempted to have promoters pay for the privilege of promoting him. Sometimes they found mugs around who are willing to do it. But you don't stay in business by being a mug….How can anybody have respect for you if you're going to be a mug? Someone like Don King, I guess, was incredulous when he looked back at his time with Hopkins. It wasn't a question of King trying to exploit Hopkins, it was Hopkins having the nerve to try to exploit Don King.
You can laugh about it, you really can. You really can't get upset about it, you can just laugh about it. You really can't get angry about it. You just say no. That's it. He doesn't hold a gun to your head. Just say no. Now when he tries stuff like he did when he was fighting Allen, threatening to leave and all that stuff, that's inexcusable, because there he is holding a gun to your head. But if he makes demands on you as a price to promote his fight, just say no, which is what I did. Just said no. There's no hard feelings.
On Floyd Mayweather:
We're finalizing his January 22nd fight…and that will hopefully lead to his fight against Gatti in June if they both win their January fights. We're looking forward to that pay-per-view extravaganza. The action that is going to shift to the 140 pound division is very, very strong as it is the 130 pound division.
On Top Rank’s plans for 2005:
I would like to do at least 50 shows, maybe a few more, we were under pressure a lot with these pay-per-view shows to televise three fights to get it off the air so people don't stay up that late. Now what we're trying to do is have the announcers shut up a little bit. Who the hell needs them talking, talking, talking and we want to at least go to four fights on the air like we're doing November 27th. Keeps the kids busy and exposed so people see them on television. I think people would rather see fights than see these announcers pontificate.
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