By Per Ake Persson
Arena Box Promotion will put on a staggering 17 professional boxing matches on their two shows on March 24 in Hamburg. The show begins at noon in their gym with a six-fight bill where comebacking Croatian jr. middleweight Ante Bilic, formerly with Spotlight Boxing, face Michael Shubov. Swedish heavyweight Aldo Colliander takes on Estonian Valery Semishkur. At lightweight, Jonny Ibramov is in against Nico Salzmann. Hardpunching but fragile heavyweight Marcel Zeller fight tough Latvian Roman Dabolins.
In the evening at the Sporthalle, the main bouts feature Spada vs. Oral and Kurzawa vs. Brancalion are already announced. GBU super flyweight champ Alesia Graf´s title defence vs Oksana Romanova is in doubt due to a courtcase with Universum that will be decided in the week to come. Of note is that Herbie Hide returns against Jevgenijs Stamburskis, a decent 4-6 round level opponent - at the same time Herbie talks of fighting the winner of Hill vs. Maske or a young tiger like Marco Huck.
WBC and WBA superchamp Mikkel Kessler closed out sparring on Monday and is reported to be in great shape for his Saturday bout with Librado Andrade.
Renowned Italian trainer Geppino Silvestri has passed away at the age of 80 in the city of Naples. Silvestri trained the likes of Patrizo Oliva, Elio Cotena, Alfredo Raininger, Ciro Di Leva and Salvatore Todisco.
The City Council in Mariehamn, on the island of Aaland between Finland and Sweden, have turned down an appeal from John Holmberg (front man for Steffen Tangstad) to stage a stage a professional boxing at the Baltic Hall in Mariehamn. Holmberg and Tangstad had applied to do a show on April 21 using Scandinavian fighters as they did as late as 2004 but the Council insist that an old rule about not letting pro-boxing or martial arts events take place in the sport halls operated by the city of Mariehamn.
It´s on: New Sweden´s show in Gothenburg on March 31 received permission from the Martial Arts Delegation. Female middleweights Aasa Sandell and Dakota Stone headline over six twos with the vacant WBE title at stake. MAD insists on improved matchmaking and better medical checkups than was the case on the first show.
