By Per Ake Persson
On July 2 in Hamburg, Germany, Ukrainian heavy Alexander Dimtirenko knocked out aging German Andreas Sidon in the second round of a bout that proved to be a mismatch. The 40+ Sidon looked every bit his age during the short encounter that was elevated to main event status when WBO lightheavy champ Zsolt Erdei fell ill and had to pull out of his defense against Frenchman Medhi Sahnoune. It was scheduled for twelve rounds.
Dimitrenko floored Sidon twice in the second by landing numerous hard punches on the mark, American referee Joe Cortez should have stepped in earlier as Sidon was overwhelmed.
At stake was the vacant WBO I/C and IBF Int´l titles.
Cruiser Alexander Petkovic appeared to be headed for a tough evening in the first against Ukrainian Vadim Safonov, but solved his opponent´s style and came through a deserved winner after eight rounds by decision.
As for Erdei trainer Fritz Sdunek reported everything had been allright during the evening before fight, the fighter started to get sick at 2 AM. He had fallen asleep again at about 4 AM but was sick again during the morning. A final decision to cancel the fight wasn´t agreed upon until the early afternoon.
There were about 2000 spectators for the nine-fight show. The 15,000 seat Color Line Arena was cut down to about one-fifth of it´s capacity for this event.