By Per Ake Persson
Italian promotional firm OPI 2000 beat Hatton Promotions in the purse bids in Rome and won the right to stage the EBU super welterweight champ Sergey Rabchenko´s mandatory defense of the title against Italian Emanuele Della Rosa. OPI 2000 bid 71, 317.00 Euro while Hatton bid 48,878.00 Euro. Date and site is to be announced.
Rabchenko (25-0 and WBC # 1) vs Della Rosa (33-1, WBC # 5) is effectively also an eliminator for a fight for a WBC world title but whether the winner will actually get a chance to take on Floyd Mayweather is a different story though.