ARENA’s rising middleweight star Mahir Oral and heavyweight prospects Steffen Kretschmann and Konstantin Airich scored easy wins at Gran Casino de Castellon in Spain on Friday night. Oral, the last opponent of “King” Arthur Abraham, beat Alexander Sipos by unanimous decision. It was the third time “the Lion” and Sipos met in the ring; Oral won all three fights but had to work hard for each victory. “Alex is a tough opponent”, states Oral. “We know each other very well which makes it very hard to surprise and dominate him..”
“We knew that this would be no walk in the park for Mahir; those two have a history and Alex Sipos did all he could to settle the outstanding score”, said promoter Ahmet Öner. “But if we want to bring Mahir back to another shot at the title we cannot match him with tomato cans. We hope that he will be back in the line for a championship bout soon.”
ARENA’s heavyweight hope Steffen Kretschmann showed a dominant performance stopping Turkish tough-guy Ergin Solmaz. Kretschmann dominated the fight from the opening bell on and smashed Solmaz’ drums with a left cross on the right ear. In accordance with the Spanish ringside physician referee Heinrich Mühmert stopped the bout after the fifth round.
“I think I did a good job”, said Kretschmann after the fight. “But I won’t be satisfied until I get the chance to compensate for my loss against Denis Bakhtov. I hope that he will give me a rematch soon.”
On June 26th Kretschmann had suffered his first and only loss when Bakhtov knocked him out with a lucky punch in the first round. Stopping Solmaz was “Kretsche”s 14th win, the 13th within the distance.
Hard-hitting Konstantin Airich stopped Yuri Lunev in only one round. “The Sandman” sent his Russian opponent to sleep only 1:12 minute into the opening round.
At the show in Spain promoter Ahmet Öner made his first public appearance after being shot down in Hamburg three weeks ago. “The doctor’s had told me that I couldn’t travel before October”, said Öner. “But I didn’t want to leave my fighters to themselves. I’m okay and as I said before: The show must go on. We are already working on our next fight night in only five weeks.”
On October 24th Oral, Kretschmann and Airich will be back in action again when ARENA returns to Cuxhaven’s Kugelbake-Halle. Eurosport will broadcast the show live again.