June 5, Neubrandenburg, Germany:
IBF middleweight champion Sebastian Sylvester retained the title with a close, controversial draw against Roman “Made in Hell” Karmazin at a packed Jahnsportforum for this Sauerland promotion. The fight was very close with Karmazin the more active and with Sylvester the more precize. After eight it seemed as if Roman´s activity would pay off but Sebastian upped the pace and had the US-based Russian reeling in round ten. Karmazin came back strongly in the final round to outwork the German. There was a long delay in announcing the result as a fight broke out at ringside as a member of Team Karmazin wanted to take the masterscorcard. There was a mistake made and the supervisor had to go through the numbers again and they read an astonishing 117-111 for Sylvester and 118-111 for Karmazin with the third card a reasonable 114-114 – two of the judges gave the final round to Sylvester. One card then read 114-113 but with all rounds scored 10-9 it was wrongly added and should have read 114-114.
Steve “USS” Cunningham regained the IBF cruiser title with fifth round tko over Troy Ross, who was stopped one second into the round with badly injured left eye. The injury was caused by what was called a legal punch and both Ross´ eyes looked swollen even before the fight. On the scorcards the fight was a draw after four with Cunningham suffering a flash knockdown in the fourth but came back and later in the round scored with a punch right into the eye of Ross, who turned away from the action in strong pain.
Cunningham is now signed to Sauerland Event who also have WBO champ Marco Huck in the stable and are close to WBC ruler Krzystof Wlodarczyk and yes, there will be unification fights. -Call it Super Six or Super Four or unification fights but it will happen, said Kalle Sauerland.
Heavyweight Oleg Platov returned to action and knocked out Gbenga Oloukun with bodyshots in the sixth round. Oloukun took standing eight counts in the first, second and fifth rounds and was unable to handle Oleg´s right to body.
Cruiser Yoan Pablo Hernandez outscored tricky American Zack Page over eight.
Lightheavy Artur Hein injured his knee badly and was retired by the doctor in the fourth against American Demetrius Davis.
21-0 coming in middle Thomas Troelenberg was upset by tough Pole Mariusz Cendrowski and lost clearly over eight.
05.06 Sylvester retains title on a draw
