Former two-division world champion Paulie Malignaggi (33-6) has been approved as challenger for EBU welterweight champ, 44-year old Gianluca Branco (49-3-1), under the condition that the fight is announced by the end of June and is executed before October. This was decided by the EBU council during the General Assembly this past weekend in Paris.
Silvio Branco has announced his retirement. The 47-year old Italian goes out at 63-11-3 in a career that began at middleweight back in 1988 and finished at cruiser weight26 years later after an amazing career. Branco held the WBU (the original British based organization that for a few years in the 90´s had some credibility) super middleweight title and the WBA light heavyweight crown, challenged Sven Ottke for the IBF super middleweight title and was always close to a title shot. His last world title fight came against WBC lightheavy titleholder Jean Pascal in 2009. Branco´s last fight was this past summer when he won the WBC silver title by stopping Juho Haapoja.
According to Rakhim Chakhkiev’s manager Vyacheslav Karakash, his protégé, rated #1 in the recent WBC cruiserweight rankings, has a fixed plan for 2014. A new route starts for Chakhkiev (17-1, 13 KOs) on March 15 in Moscow, Russia, with the most possible opponent being WBC #5 Silvio Branco (63-11-3, 37 KOs) of Italy. The fight will fall into a huge card, promoted by Andrey Ryabinskiy.
At 46, every single fight can be the end of the road for him, but Silvio Branco (63-11-3, 37 KOs) is nevertheless still victorious - at least at European level. Tonight, at Stadio Comunale Fattori in Civitavecchia, the Italian veteran (and former two-time WBA light heavyweight champion) got the better of rugged Finnish challenger Juho Haapoja (20-4-1, 13 KOs) over ten close rounds to grab a vacant WBC Silver cruiserweight title and to continue his road to yet another title shot at an almost record age.