By Per Ake Persson
AMI Productions, headed by Michel Acaries, won today´s purse bids for Devi Gogiya´s mandatory defense of the EBU super middleweight title against Italian Cristian Sanavia. Date and site will be determined within the next 15 days.
Female super flyweight Alesia Graf has left Universum and joined Arena Box Promotion. In a press release from Arena Graf´s manager Ralf Haffner states they feel Universum concentrates too hard on Ina Menzer and not on Alesia. Ahmet Oner, who heads Arena, says he feels Alesia will be a bigger star than Regina Halmich.
Romanian, based in Canada, super middleweight Lucian Bute might get a spot on the Kessler vs. Andrade show in Copenhagen on March 24.
Djamel Bakhi and Mike Algoet clash for the Belgian middleweight title on February 17 in Evere. On the undercard IBF I/C heavy champ Oleg Platov is set to comeback after a brief layoff due to an arm injury. There could also be fighters coming in from Sauerland Event.
Esham Pickering will spar with IBF challenger Spend Abazi in the coming weeks as Spend prepares for the fight against Robert Guerrero on February 23 in Copenhagen. Pickering is not a southpaw like "the Ghost" but he will turn southpaw for this occasion. Team Palle will also have another, yet to be named, American sparring coming to town.
EBU interim President Bob Logist and General Secretary Enza Jacoponi were on hand in Gothenburg for the first pro boxing show on Swedish soil for 37 years. Mrs Jacoponi comments: "Boxingwise it was nothing special but it was a big effort from the promoters, we were treated very nicely, the venue was wonderful, and it was hopefully a start of something new after all these years."
