WBN caught up with the three-time world champion whilst in the midst of his vacation in Dubai and Sturm revealed that despite defeats to Daniel Geale and Sam Soliman, turning his back on boxing was never an option.
“It’s not the time to retire,” Sturm told World Boxing News.
“I still have a lot of fight inside me and I felt that in training camp. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do the things I did in camp against Soliman – but I’m not done and there are many challenges left for me.
“I want to become world champion again. We have big plans for the remaining year and my team is already working on my next fight, which should take place this summer.”
Sturm, as revealed by WBN in the first part of our interview yesterday, is keen on avenging both his decision reverses to Geale and Soliman and also stated that travelling outside of Germany would be considered.
“Like I said before, I’d like to prove that I’m better than Geale and Soliman, so a rematch against either one of them would be great,” said Sturm.
“I want to become champion again, so anyone with a belt is interesting to me.
“I also might move up somewhere down the road. But for now, I’ll stay at middleweight. Only a catch-weight fight is possible at this time as I’m not done at 160lbs.
On a possible return to America where Sturm lost out controversially to Oscar De La Hoya in 2004, the 43-fight veteran added: “Definitely. I had a great experience when I fought De La Hoya those years ago in Las Vegas – despite the controversial nature of the decision.
“I wouldn’t hesitate to go back to the States. It has to be the right fight at the right time, though.”
