By Alexey Sukachev
The scene is set for tomorrow’s small but smoothly packed night of boxing in Budva, Montenegro, where well-known Balkan promoter Luka Popovic of Red Star Guinness unifies his efforts with the Russia-based Ural Boxing Promotions, ruled by Evgueny Vainstein and his chief assistant Alexey Vasiliev, to present local aficionados with a very interesting card. Today, the weigh-in has been conducted to define the metrics of the participants.
In the main event, local lightweight Dejan Zlaticanin (15-0, 11 KOs), who is ranked #10 by the WBC, looks forward to extend his impressive winning series against dangerous Uzbek hitter Bahrom Payozov (20-1, 14 KOs), 27. The Montenegrin’s WBC International 135lb title is at stake in this fight. Zlaticanin, 28, weighed-in at 134.5 pounds, while the Uzbek fighter tipped the scales at 135 pounds even.
In a co-feature, highly ranked Montenegrin veteran Nicola Sjekloca (24-0, 7 KOs), who holds the European super middleweight title, will tune-up against upset artist Hadillah Mohoumadi (13-1-1, 9 KOs) over ten rounds. Sjekloca, 34, is in position for the WBC title fight in his future being ranked #1 by the World Boxing Council, and also #12 by both the WBA and the WBO, while Mohoumadi, 31, is the French national champion. Both weighed-in at exactly 168.75.
A couple of Russian fighters, including talented welterweight Konstantin Ponomarev (15-0, 7 KOs), 19, and cruiserweight Murat Gassiev (5-0, 2 KOs) are expected to fill the undercard of the show.
