By Alexey Sukachev
A promising fight between rising Russian welterweight prospect Anton Novikov (21-0, 8 KOs) and dangerous Sweden-based upset artist Karlo Tabaghua (17-3, 12 KOs), for a vacant WBC Youth title, has been called off. WBC #14 Novikov has badly injured one of his hands in during a sparring session on Thursday. He is out for three months at least.
“It’s boxing, and sometimes such unpleasant things happenduring business”, commented Alexey Vasilyev from Ural Boxing Promotions. “Our only hope now is that Anton will recover in the shortest time possible. Maybe later we shall re-consider this collision”.
Novikov vs. Tabaghua was scheduled as the main event of a packed outdoor event, which was set to take place on May 28 near the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia. The event is still a go with four other pairs competing at the welterweight limit. The featured bout of the show is now a fight between two much underrated journeymen – Roman Seliverstov (12-8, 2 KOs) and Alexey Evchenko (9-7-1, 5 KOs) for one of Evchenko’s titles (probably for the WBO European belt). Also on the card are young guns Aslanbek Kozaev (16-0, 5 KOs) and Konstantin Ponimarev (9-0, 5 KOs) in separate bouts for WBC minor titles and there is a clash for the Russian national belt between titleholder David Avanesyan (7-1, 2 KOs) and undefeated Ruslan Khayrtdinov (9-0, 3 KOs). Ural Boxing Promotions is the organizer of the entire show.