Matthew Macklin's heroic performance against Felix Sturm in Germany two weeks ago has been rewarded with an immediate rematch.Whilst David Haye turned in a tepid showing in Hamburg a week later, the Birmingham middleweight confidently went into the lion's den in Cologne and took the fight to the skilled WBA world middleweight champion for 12 rounds and seemed unfortunate to come away with nothing.
Many in the trade had Macklin edging a bruising encounter he appeared to be dominating for the first 18 minutes - forcing Sturm, making the tenth defence in his second reign as World Boxing Association boss, onto the back foot with an educated close-quarters assault of the body.
Yet two of the judges saw the former WBO champion a clear 116-112 winner, with the third handing Matthew a 115-113 tally that came more in line with the consensus. For what it's worth, which is very little, i had the Irish-rooted ex-British and two-time European monarch, 29, a 115-114 victor (or 6-5-1 in rounds).
Though Sturm began to peg the sharp Solihull scrapper back in the last quarter - taking a step back and making room to thread accurate right uppercuts through Macklin's defence - he was out-landed during the 36 minutes of exciting action and for him to have won by four rounds was ludicrous to even the most biased German.
Afterwards, the classy 32-year-old offered an immediate rematch to the Joe Gallagher-trained, Birmingham-born crowd-pleaser, who used to spend long summers in his parents' homeland of Ireland, that was thought to be no more than usual post-fight bluster in which nothing would materialise.
But neat-boxing Sturm, 36-2-1 (15) and who thought (despite acknowledging it was close) he'd done more than enough to win on June 25, has proved his word is his bond by hastily penciling in a second fight, also at the impressive Lanxess Arena in Cologne, on November 26 - though i understand Macklin has yet to agree to it.
History is littered with men who boxed to the absolute peak of their ability in a first meeting only to be blown away in a rematch. But if he does take him up on the offer, Macklin, 28-3 (19), will hope history doesn't follow a similar path and that the judges give him a fair deal this time around or, better still, that they won't be needed at all.
Photo courtesy of FelixSturm.De.
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