By Per Ake Persson
Comebacking cruiserweight Giovanni Alvarez is off the New Sweden show on January 27 in Gothenburg due to a hand injury. He is replaced by Romanian Giulian Ilie, who takes on Argentinian Christian Leal over four three minute rounds.
Norwegians Nikita Dubunin and Andreas Evensen are also off the bill. The show is headlined by female super middleweight Aasa Sandell, who takes on Trinidad´s Scroller Carringon in what, all due respect to all involved, is a pretty terrible matchup. Heavyweight Aldo Colliander takes on ex-WBA cruiserweight champ Robert Daniels in the co-headliner.As it looks now there will be nine fights on the bill with a total of 38 rounds scheduled. Media reports of slow ticketsales, but 3500 tickets sold sounds pretty good to me - but then again the show takes place at the 12 000-seater Scandinavium. The event goes out live in Sweden in TV4+. Ringside seats costs over 200 EUR and there´s a dresscode to them.
WBA I/C welterweight champ Yuri Nuzhenko defends the title on February 27 in Kiev against Farkad Bakirov. Light heavyweight Vyacheslav Uzelkov and Artem Vychkin clash for the vacant EEU title in a supporting bout.
Next up for WBA heavyweight champ Nikolai Valuev is the mandatory defense against Ruslan Chagaev. The WBA will call for purse bids on February 9 if no agreement is reached before that and wants the fight to go ahead no later than April 15.
Timo Hoffmann returns on March 3 in Rostock on the undercard to Asikainen vs Sylvester. Hoffmann put his career back on track last time out with a points win over stablemate Cengiz Koc.
Croatian super middleweight Stepjan Bozic headlines a small show in Rijeka on January 26 along with middleweight Vedran Akrap. These two will also be in featured bouts when Mia St John and Ramona Kuehne clash for the WBC female title on April 14 in Croatia.
Swiss super middleweight Sofiane Sebihi suffered an upset loss to Dutchman Najim Etthouali on the undercard to Valuev vs. McCline. It was scored 77-75 on two cards for Etthouali and then a pretty amazing 79-74 for Sebihi, who made a bright start but then ran out of gas.
Veteran heavyweights Rasko Draskovic and Ivica Perkovic clash for the inaugural WBC Mediterranean title on March 30 in Croatia. As a result of this fight coming together Perkovic pulled out of the scheduled fight against Italian Paolo Vidoz that was set to take place this weekend.
German heavyweight Steffen Kretschmann is sidelined with a knee injury. The press release from Arena Box Promotion reads "McCline and Kretschmann, what do they have in common?"
It appears that it will be Hungarian veteran Zoltan Petranyi that takes on Edgar Kalnar´s for the Int´l Latvian title on March 10 in Riga - at least his name is on the posters announcing the fight.
