By Alexey Sukachev
Ural Boxing Promotion, 2010 Russian pugilistic company of the year, is coming back on May 28 to Moscow with its annual boxing show at Red Square, several feet from the Kremlin. For the third consecutive year this Chelyabinsk-based promotional group, led by president Evgueny Vainstein and director Alexey Vasilyev, will stage a nice-packed show, comprised by several minor title fights to entertain the local public with some quality welterweight fisticuffs.
In the main event, WBC #14 welterweight Anton Novikov (21-0, 8 KOs), 23, will go after a vacant WBC Youth 147lb belt against his toughest opponent of his 5-year career. The “Pick Hammer” of Kopeysk, Russia, collides with tough and skilled Sweden-based Georgian Karlo Tabaghua (17-3, 12 KOs), 26. Hard-hitting Tabaghua, fighting between light welterweight and super middleweight, has never been stopped and is coming off a road win over IBF #10 ranked Belgian Jackson Osei Bonsu in his last fight. Southpaw Novikov will see action for the fourth time this year in his comeback to the welterweight ranks following a back-and-fourth voyage to the middleweight class.
In the top supportive fight of the night, two hugely underrated and underachieving veteran welterweights, whose skills are way better than their records suggest, will clash against each other to determine a possible top-15 entrant to the world ranks. The titleholder is 27-year old Alexey Evchenko (9-7-1, 5 KOs), who is in possession of PABA and WBO Europe belts as well as of the EBU-EE welterweight title. Former Russian champion Evchenko has scored two consecutive upset knockouts in his last two fights over 13-1 Bogdan Mitic and 11-0 Sherali Mamadaliev. His opponent will be 34-year old veteran Roman Seliverstov (12-8, 3 KOs). Seliverstov has never been stopped as well. He has wins over two former world title challengers in Michael Trabant (43-3-1) and Cosme Rivera (31-12-2). The fight will be billed for Evchenko’s PABA and WBO Europe titles.
In the third title event of the night, Ruslan Khayrtdinov (9-0, 3 KOs) and David Avanesyan (7-1, 2 KOs), another pair of 147lbers, will go at each other for a vacant Russian title. Also, WBC #24 junior welterweight Aslanbek Kozaev (16-0, 5 KOs) will return to the welterweight to take on a yet unknown Belarussian opponent.
Finally (and not surprisingly at 147lbs limit), 18-year old young gun Konstantin Ponomarev (9-0, 5 KOs) will go after the first title of his short career. Ponomarev will battle eight scheduled rounds for a vacant WBC Youth intercontinental title against one of his compatriots, whose name will be announced later.
The event will most probably be held as an open-air with free admission as a part of the seventh Military-Sportive forum “Ready for Labour and Defense” to be held in Moscow from May 24 to May 29.