January 23, Cuxhaven, Grmany.
Arena Box Promotion returned to Cuxhaven and the Kugelbackhall for another show with heavyweights Ondrey Pala and Konstantin Airich on top along with middleweight Mahir Oral.
Pala outscored American Robert Hawkins over eight winning fair enough but was not overly impressive. Hawkins worked very hard but was seldom effective. It was scored 78-74 twice and 78-75. Pala concentrated too much on blocking punches and didn´t punch enough.
Arich looked very lucky to get a draw against Alex Mazikin, who correctly had two points deducted for low blows in the third but overall outboxed and outpunched his smaller opponent. Alex was badly cut around the right but seemed to be a clear winner. IHowever one judge had Airich up at 77-75 while two had it 76-76. Airich himself felt he had won clearly but his trainer said he was happy with the result.
Oral made hard work of tough but limited German-based Italian Fabio Liggieri but came out a close winner after eight hardfought rounds. It was scored 78-77 twice and 76-76. Liggieri worked very hard but was seldom effective while Oral landed with the cleaner punches to take home a close win.
Heavyweight Yakup Saglam stopped Russian Yuri Lunev in two one-sided rounds and is now set for an all-Turkish showdown against the comebacking Sinan Samil Sam. The fight will go ahead in Turkey in April.
Dominican southpaw Felix Diaz took some time to warm up but once he got started he impressed in taking out Czech Bronislav Kubin in three.Kubin was down in the second and twice in the third.
LIghtheavy Patrick Dobreschi, the first fighter officially signed to WBA middleweight champ Felix Sturm´s promotional company, outscored Latvian Jevgenijs Kiselevs over six. Kiselevs was down twice in the third. Cheerleader for Patrick was heavyweight Manuel Charr and in the corner was welter Maurice Weber.
News: The WBC have reportedly decided on two eliminators with the winners ti fight for the vacant title. In the first ex-champ Giacobbe Fragomeni will face Krzystof Wlodarczyk while Herbie Hide will take on Francisco Palacios in the second.
Arena are back March 27 in Hamburg with Steffen Kretschmann vs Dennis Bakhtov.