By Per Ake Persson
British jr. welterweight Ted Bami has pulled out of the EBU title fight against Gianluca Branco due to a shoulder injury. Bami vs Branco was scheduled for Milano on January 25. The show will still go ahead with EBU jr. middleweight titleholder Michele Piccirillo taking on Michael Jones. OPI 2000 is still working on the undercard but Arena Box Promotion have as already reported two guys on the show; heavyweight Steffen Kretschmann and jr welterweight Aydin Selcuk.
German heavyweight Luan Krasniqi headlines a Universum show on March 17 in Stuttgart writes German news agency dpa. Opponent might be ex-WBO heavyweight champ Lamon Brewster, who stopped Krasniqi back 2005, or Tony Thompson or Hasim Rahaman or perhaps Evander Holyfield. The 35-year old Krasniqi, 29-2-1, fought just once last year, partly due to an injury and partly due to managerial dispute.
WIBF flyweight champ Regina Halmich had seven million fans watching on ZDF as she outscored Reka Kempf in a rather drab fight. Thomas Ulrich´s exciting TKO win over Rachid Kanfouah had slightly over three million watching - and it wasn´t even televised live.
Belgians Cedric Charlier and Douglas Bellini clash for the vacant TWBA middleweight title on February 24 in Herstal.
Norwegian super bantamweight Reidar Walstad square off against Frenchman Jean Marie Codet on January 30 in Helsinki on the Asikainen vs Di Giacomo bill. Latvian jr middle Jurijs Boreiko is off the show as he will participate in a K 1 event a few days later, also in Finland.
UK-based Albanian Quato Kreshnik and Russian veteran Alexander Zaitsev are to fight for the vacant EEEU supermiddle title on March 3 in Tirana, the capital of Albania.
Frenchman Cyril Thomas has relinquished the EBU featherweight title. Dane Spend Abazi and Ukrainian Yuri Voronin are co-challengers for the vacant title with January 30 as deadline for agreement or pursebids. Abazi is of course still in line to fight Robert Guerrero for the vacant IBF title, but when and where are is still open.
