Branco Milenkovic Once Again Receives WBC Honors
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
Well known South African promoter Branco Milenkovic has once again been named as the World Boxing Council "International Promoter of the Year."
Milenkovic who has been mainly responsible for an upsurge in interest in boxing in South Africa and has promoted numerous big fights in that country received his award from WBC president Don Jose Sulaiman at the WBC Annual Convention in Jenju, South Korea.
In the meantime, WBC Bantamweight world champion Hozumi Hasegawa of Japan (27-2, 11 KO's) is scheduled to make a voluntary title defense against Nicaragua's No. 12 ranked Alvaro Perez (18-1-1, 12 KO's) on December 18 and has stated that he might vacate the title to move up to super bantamweight after the Perez title defense..
A final elimination bout to determine the mandatory challenger was approved by the WBC. The fight will be between No. 1 ranked Simpiwe Vetyeka (21-1, 12 KO's) of South Africa and No. 2 ranked Abner Mares of Mexico who is undefeated with a record of 19-0 with 12 knockouts.
The free negotiation period begins on Thursday.
Should Hasegawa decide to vacate the title after his next defense, the winner of the Simpewe-Mares fight will be named champion.
The 23 year old Mares was out for some 13 months due to a detatched retina discovered after a unanimous ten round decision over Jonathan Arias on June 27, 2008. Mares next fought on August May 2, 2009 when Jonathan Perez retired in the sixth round of an eight-round bout. In his last fight the talented Mares scored a 6th round knockout over Carlos Fulgencio last August 27.
