By Per Ake Persson
IBF featherweight champ Cristobal "Lacandon" Cruz defends the title on February 14 in France against Cyril Thomas.
Former WBA jr welteweightr titleholder Souleyman M´Baye returns to action tomorrow in London on the Maccarinelli-Alvarez show. M´Baye, 36-3-1 and a loser in a IBF eliminatior last time out, faces Welshman Barrie Jones, in a fight where both need to win to stay in the picture for bigger things.
The Seferi brothers, Nuri and Sefer, both scored wins in Skopje, Macedonia, last weekend. Nuri stopped German Mohammed Ali Durmaz in two while Sefer TKO'd Hungarian Attila Makula in four. Nuri and Sefer are based in Switzerland, fights with a Swiss license but have an Albanian background.
WBA interim welter weightchamp Yuri Nuzhnenko face Ikbal Kurbanov in a non-title fight on K2 East´s "Big Boxing" show December 20 in Zaporizhzhja.
Team Palle won the purse bids to stage EU supermiddle titleholder Lolenga Mock´s defence against Spaniard Gabriel Campillo. Date and site to be announced.
Sauerland Event´s Danish super middleweight Mads Larsen faces Italian Roberto Cocco on the Valuev-Holyfield show December 20 in Zurich, Switzerland. For Larsen, 50-2, it´s the sixth fight in his comeback that began last year. Sauerland are hoping to land a shot at IBF champ Lucian Bute in early 2009.
Rosanna Conti Cavini have postponed Christian Bladt´s defence of the WBO I/C welter title against Sven Paris December 19 in Grosseto but the show still go ahead with Paris now facing Hungarian Laszlo Komjathi. Michele Di Rocco take on Slovakian Leonid Smetanca on the undercard.
Bihes Barakat and Ali Chusseinov square off for the IBF Youth jr light title December 20 in Berlin on a GBA sanctioned show.
Swedish-based Ugandan Sam Rukundo have been stripped off the ABU lightweight title due to inactivity. Rukundo is now a freelancer after first being signed with Mickey Helliet in the UK and Robert Larsen in Denmark.
Italian welter Leonard Bundu fight Frenchman Bruce Faradji March 13, 2009, in Forenze with the vacant EU title at stake.
The BBU, Baltic Boxing Union, have appointed Russian boxing writer Alexey Sukachev as its Russian representative. BBU is affiliated to the WBF.
