By Per Ake Persson: Bild in Germany writes today that WBA middle champ Felix Sturm is looking into an offer from Arena Box Promotion for six fights, each worth 2,5 millio EUR with a two million EUR signing fee. All in all the offer is worth 17 million EUR if Felix continues his winning ways. Sturm says it´s a very interesting offer. It should be noted that while Sturm claims to be out of the contract with Universum the Hamburg based promotion company disagrees and claims a valid contract with options for more..
P 3 Boxing in Finland announced today the program for its show October 24 in Helsinki. As previously reported Russian jr welter Denis Shafikov headlines and the opponent will be Mexican Fernando Trejo, who steps in at relatively late notice. In other fights Swedish heavy Attila Levin will face Portugese slugger Humberto Evora while Russian welter Roman Seliverstov will take on Mexican veteran Cosme Rivera. Another interesting fight is between middleweights Niko Jokinen and Cliff Soukka from Sweden – both have unbeaten records and have this far looked good in their respective careers. Russian heavy Vladimir Tereshkin, formerly with Spotlight Boxing, jr welter Edis Tatli, jr light Tuomo Eronen and jr middle Mika Joensuu are also on the bill.
WBA bantam champ Anselmo “Chemito” Moreno defends the title November 7 in Agde, France, against Frederic Patrac. Moreno won the title in Germany and this is his second defence in France. “Chemito” is one to watch closely: a slick southpaw, a good boxer and he always look like he can do more. Patrac, all due respect – a solid performer and ex EBU champ – looks like he is out of his depth in this one.
WBF middle champ Kresnik Qato defends the title against Austrian Gogi Knezevic October 24 in Dessau. This SES promotion is headlined Francois Botha´s defence of the WBF heavyweight title against Willi Fischer. WBF European co-ordinator Olaf Schroeder manages Botha, Fischer and Knezevic and is the matchmaker for SES so regardless of who wins we know who really won.
WBA lightheavy champ Gabriel Campillo appears to be set to again defend the title against Beibut Shumenov – this time reportedly sometime in January in Reno, Nevada. While the parties are on surface are in agreement with strict orders not to comment to anyone the story behind is quite interesting. In short: Campillo beat Shumenov in Kazachstan in August on a close majority decision – close enough for some to argue that Shumenov had won. According to the WBA supervisor on site Campillo delivered his doping test in accordance with the rules. Weeks later Shumenov and his team claim after Campillo had gone public with the fact that he hadn´t been paid that the champion had violated the drug testing rules and thus hadn´t been paid – and wouldn´t be paid either. Both parties then threatend with legal action – if they actually did take any is not known. But here is the problem: Campillo could have sued for the money and won but before the case had been closed in the courts it could possibly have taken a few years – after all what happend happend in Kazachstan. Instead we get a rematch with Campillo finally paid for the first fight.