German athletes have always been famous for their discipline, zeal and hard work. Thanks to this, many of them became champions. If we talk about boxers, the main thing is their biography, results. Felix Sturm is one of those fighters who, of course, deserves the closest attention from the public. We will talk about him in this article.
Curriculum Vitae
Felix Sturm (real name - Adnan Chatić) was born in the German city of Leverkusen on January 31, 1979. Has a Bosnian origin. The fighter’s height is 181 centimeters, and the arm span is 185 centimeters. To date, he has held 49 fights in the professional ring, in 40 of which he managed to win (18 wins by knockout).
Lovers Career
The first serious fights of Felix Sturm in the amateur ring occurred in the period 1995-96, when he was able to become the champion of Germany in the junior division. In 1998-99, the boxer again won the championship of his native country, but already in the new weight category - welterweight. The only silver award he had was in 1997.
He took part in the 1999 world championship. In the first battle, he was able to defeat the Ukrainian Tsurkan Andrey with a score of 8: 3, but already in the next round he could not oppose anything to Kazakh Yermakhan Ibrimov.
In 2000, Felix was able to win the European Championship, where in the first fight he defeated the representative of Hungary Karol Balzai.
In the same 2000, Sturm became a participant in the Olympics. Participation in the main world tournament did not bring success to the German, because he was defeated at the hands of American Germain Taylor.
Professional performances
The German debut in the pro ring took place in early 2001. He began his performances in middleweight. Two years later, he was already able to become the IBF Youth World Champion. In the summer of 2003, Felix Sturm won the WBO Intercontinental World Championship title. And in September, he managed to win a full WBO title in a fight with the Argentinean Hector Javier Velasco. The victory turned out to be difficult and was appropriated by a separate judicial decision. Three months later, the first defense of the belt passed in a duel with Ruben Varon, which was successful for the champion. However, in the summer of 2004, Sturm could not win the match with Oscar De La Hoya, and gave him the champion title.
But this defeat did not stop the German, and he continued to train, because for him his biography was always important. Felix Sturm re-enters the ring in the fall and wins the title of intercontinental WBO middleweight division in a fight with Robert Fraser. The German subsequently defended this title in fights with Bert Schenk and Jorge Sendra.
Felix Sturm won his next WBA championship belt in the spring of 2006, when he was able to defeat Marcelo Maso. However, already in the summer of that year, the German very unexpectedly lost his belt in a duel with Javier Castillejo. In April 2007, a rematch was held between the fighters, in which Sturm had already won and regained the title. This was followed by a successful series of belt defenses in the amount of seven battles, after which Felix took a break for 14 months.
The return to the ring was also successful: Giovanni Lawrence was defeated. This victory allowed Felix to become WBA Super Champion.
Felix Sturm entered the unification duel on the first September day of 2012. His rival was Daniel Gil. As a result of all 12 rounds, the judges, who did not like the rational manner of fighting the German, preferred the Australian with a score of 116-112.
This defeat led the IBF to decide to fight between Soliman and Sturm for the right to become a mandatory challenger. In February 2013, this fight took place and ended in a victory for Sam by a judicial decision. However, a little later, doping was found in the Australian blood, and Sturm's defeat was canceled.
Fights of Felix Sturm with the Russian Chudinov were champion. The only difference is that in the first match, Dmitry won the decision of the judges, and in the second, which was held on February 20, 2016, Felix.
Suspension from sports
In September 2016, the German prosecutor's office announced that soon the assault would be put on the wanted list due to the failure to appear to open the “B” doping test, which he had initiated. Investigators know that at the moment Felix is outside of Germany and lives in Bosnia and Herzegovina.