Showtime´s “Super Six World Boxing Classic” was today officially announced at the Tivoli right in the heart of Copenhagen with four (Andre Ward missing due to illness and Andre Dirrell out due to passport problems) of the six participants on hand. The tournament begins with Arthur Abraham vs Jermain Taylor with Mikkel Kessler vs Andre Ward at a later date. Kessler must first take care of mandatory challenger Gusmyl Perdomo and the WBA have set July 20 for purse bids. The winner of the purse bids must then stage the fight somewhere between 45 and 90 days from July 20. Add to that Kessler´s two unsettled contractual disputes with Team Palle and we have an uncertain date for the Ward fight – if it comes off it will be in Oakland, CA, though. Tomorrow the Super Six (both Ward and Dirrell are said to be in Europe by then) will hit Berlin.
Should Sauerland Event win pursebids for Kessler vs Perdomo September 19 seems like a likely date. Already on for that show is Francesco Pianeta defending the EU heavyweight title against Brit Matt Skelton.
French boxing will be hit by another “Grand Tournoi” and this time at a weight between 76 and 80 kg and will thus attract both supermiddles, lightheavies as well as cruiserweights. The first date – all shows go ahead at Cirque d´Hiver in Paris – is September 10. The participants include unbeaten WBC Int´l cruiser champ Doudou N´Gumbu, solid journeyman Karim Bennama, former WBA lightheavy ruler Medhi Sahnoune and Belgian dangerman Djamel Selini.
Hungarian jr middle prospect Gabor Veto will headline at home in Varpalota July 25 in a show where all ”heroes” pay their own costs for opponents as well as expenses with free entrance for the crowd. The show feature the comeback of former WBF and IBO jr middle titleholder Mihaly Kotai.
Khoren Gevor was very unhappy with the loss to WBA middle champ Felix Sturm Saturday night. Bild writes of a big dispute inside Universum where the “eliminators” between stablemates take centerstage. It´s a fact that Universum´s sister company Spotlight Boxing no longer have shows televised by ProSieben or EuroSport and ZDF are rumored to be at the end of their long and sucessfull collaboration with Universum and this is what have made a downsizing of the organisation necesserary. As for Gevor he struggled for a long time on the undercards with tough losses to Lukas Konecny, a brave but losing performance to Arthur Abraham and then an upset win pver Amin Asikainen to grab the EBU title. Against Sturm he came close - scoring from TV it could have gone either way – but it was by no means a robbery.
14.07 Euro News
