By Per Ake Persson
Ukrainian featherweight Stas Merdov won the vacant EBA featherweight title this past weekend in Donetsk. However, at the same time Merdov was stripped of the EBU affiliated EE-EU title and lost his rating with the EBU. The EBU imposed a ban on the EBA a few years back after a bitter feud, at the time with the support of the WBA but since then the EBA, at that time ousted from the WBA after another bitter feud, is now again affiliated with the WBA.
It´s not officially confirmed by Sauerland but the opponent for EBU cruiserweight king Alexander Frenkel, 23-0, February 12 in Muehlheim an der Ruhr, seems to be Frenchman Zakaria Azzaoui, 12-1-2. Zakaria was in training for a fight for the EU title February 27 against champ Lubos Suda but skipped that for a probably more lucrative offer to face Frenkel.
Russian heavyweight Dennis Boytsov is on the mend after another hand injury and is expected back in April. Boytsov, 28-0 and # 2 with both the WBA and WBC, injured his hand as a 17-year old amateur and has had problems with the hand ever since.
In 2006 Croatian super middleweight Stepjan Bozic, then 18-1 and considered a prospect, fought two trial fights for Sauerland Event. In the first he suffered an upset loss to unheralded Russian Deviya Gogiya and in the second fight it was do or die against Vitaly Tsypko and Bozic "died" after suffering a second round knockout. Now 23-4 Bozic returns to Germany February 12 to take on Arthur Abraham in a scheduled non-title ten-rounder.
Middleweight Mahir Oral, a loser to both Sebastian Sylvester and Arthur Abraham, was to be featured on the undercard of the postponed Sylvester vs Bouadla show this Saturday. Oral still feels he has a chance to compete at world title level.
With Sebastian Zbik crowned "full" champ" by the WBC, we have four "world" middleweight champs, more or less, based in Germany. Felix Sturm is the WBA "super champ", Sebastian Sylvester the IBF king and Gennadyi Golovkin, from Kazachstan but managed and promoted by a German team, holds the WBA "regular" title. One should think there would be a hot market for some unification fights but not so.
IBF I/C middleweight champ Benjamin Simon will take on Australian veteran Sam Soliman, most likely April 1 in Berlin. The fight is also an eliminator for the # 2 spot in the IBF ratings.
EU jr welterweight ruler Ville Piispanen will defend the title against Vittorio Oi. The fight will be promoted by P 3 Boxing in Finland with date and site to be announced. Piispanen first had Brunet Zamora as mandatory challenger but he withdrew to defend the WBA I/C belt sometime in April.
Light heavyweights Vigan Mustafa and Bernard Donfack clash for the vacant IBF Int´l title February 25 in Florence, Italy. Boxe Loreni promotes.
Russian jr. middleweight veteran Robert Dasoyan, for many years based in the US, is training in Swindon, UK, under Paddy Fitzpatrick for an upcoming fight for the national title February 26 in Moscow. Daosyan was stopped in two by Kelly Pavlik in 02 and didn´t fight again until 2009.
