By Marcus Richardson: Former WBO light heavyweight champion Juergen Braehmer (37-2, 30 KO’s) has finally found an opponent to fight on April 21st and will be taking on little known light heavyweight Vikapita Meroro (21-3, 9 KO’s) at the Sport and Congress Center, Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommem, Germany.
Braehmer, #15 WBC, needs to stay busy to try and move up the rankings so he can get another crack at one of the light heavyweight titles. He lost his World Boxing Organization title when he had it stripped from him in May of 2011 for failing to defend it against his mandatory challenger Nathan Cleverly. Braehmer has fought only once since then, beating Jose Maria Guerrero by a 4th round TKO last January.
Meroro has two out of his last three fights against light heavyweight contenders Isaac Chilemba and Braimah Kamoko; both defeats occurred last year in decision losses. Other than those two fights, there’s not much on Meroro’s record to get excited about. He’s faced largely lower level opposition until stepping it up and losing two fights. It looks like Meroro will be losing again when he faces Braehmer on April 21st.
This is merely another tune-up fight for the 33-year-old southpaw Braehmer and not meant to be a competitive match-up. Hopefully, Braehmer doesn’t waste too much more time with 2nd tier fodder because he needs to make up for a lot of lost time in his career.
The southpaw Braehmer is still a good fighter but he’s wasted so much time in his career. Had he defended his title against Nathan Cleverly, he likely would have won and still be champion if he fought the same guys than Cleverly has faced since getting the WBO belt handed to him out of the ring.
Most of the card is still taking shape unfortunately. Here are the fighters and some of the fights that have been already scheduled.
Ina Menzer vs. TBA
Rakhim Chakhkiev vs. TBA
Ruslan Chagaev vs. TBA
Juan Carlos Gomez vs. TBA
Mercel Meyerdiercks vs. TBA
Karoly Balzsay vs. Dimitri Sartison
Rafael Bejaran vs. Ante Bilic