12.07.04 – Christopher P. Cook, GermanUpdate.com: The first weekend in July saw two cards taking place in Germany. Opening up the month on the second, at Boxtempel in Berlin, light middleweight Alexander Sipos (7-0-0, 4 KOs) TKO’d Gabriel Botos (2-30-3, 1 KO) in the fifth round. Also on the card, undefeated super featherweight Rashad Ismayilov (12-0-0, 3 KOs) won a points victory over Ondrej Skala (1-9-1, 0 KOs), welterweight Arthur Nowak (7-3-0, 2 KOs) defeated Michal Durovic (3-13-2, 0 KOs) in a rematch of their April meeting, and light heavyweight Mathias Kempe (2-0-0, 1 KO) scored a points win over debut Radek Seman. In the lone heavyweight action of night Yugoslav Goran Gogic (9-1-2, 5 KOs) defeated Ergin Solmaz (1-7-2, 0 KOs) of Germany, and finishing out the card, Alexan Manweljan (2-0-0, 2 KOs) landed a beautiful right hook to knockout Tim Ruchholz (1-1-1, 0 KOs) in the third round in light weltweight action. Werner Kastor and WMP Ltd. hosted the fight card in Berlin.
On the following night at Stadthalle in Hattersheim, The Abraham brothers made easy work of their opponents headlining a busy night of action. Alexander Abraham (8-0-0, 8 KOs) defeated József Balázs via TKO in the fourth. Arthur Abraham (12-0-0, 12 KOs) also won his bout early, knocking out Dave Nash (4-5-0, 1 KO) in the second round of the bout. Arthur, with this victory, will be moving on to face Nader Hamdan (36-1- 0, 17 KOs) for the vacant WBA International Middleweight title. The undercard shaped out as such: Alexander Awdijan UD4 Roman Vanicky, Kavin Gebhard UD4 Marian Varchol, Alexander Kahl TKO1 Ladislav Slezak, Konni Konrad KO4 Richard Remen, Ante Bilic UD6 Joseph Sovijus, Alesia Graf UD4 Julia Kulikova, and Julia Sahin UD4 Oksana Romanova.
The weekend of the 17th-18th is filled with action, as three cards are taking place in Germany. Starting off the weekend early, on Thursday in München at the Kleine Olympiahalle, six bouts are scheduled. A full schedule is not available as of yet, but the card will include Denis Simcic (1-0-0, 1 KO), debut Iryna Ponomarova, and more debuting local boxers. Saturday holds the other two events, Universum hosts a match in Zwickau while Sport Events Steinforth will be holding theirs in Dessau. At the Anhalt-Arena in Dessau, NBA Middleweight champion Dirk Dzemski (22-0-0, 13 KOs) will defend his title against Sebastian Sylvester (13-1-0, 5 KOs) in the main event. Dirk, who will be defending his title for the sixth time, is looking to improve his stock in the middleweight division. With all the action the division has had this year, top spots are opening up and attention is being drawn much more than in recent years.
Also in action on the card are NBA Intercontinental Light Middleweight champ Lukas Konecny (21-0-0, 11 KOs), Norman Schuster (3-0-0, 2 KOs), NBA Intercontinental Welterweight champ Jan Zaveck (12-0-0, 6 KOs) and more. At Universum’s card at Stadhalle in Zwickau, Thomas Ulrich (26-1-0, 18 KOs) will be facing Silvio Branco (49-7-2, 30 KOs) for the vacant EBU Light Heavyweight title. Branco was last seen in action in March against Fabrice Tiozzo for the WBA title. In a close decision, Tiozzo pulled out a MD victory over Branco.
Thomas Ulrich (IBF#4, WBC#4, WBA#7), who’s sole loss comes to IBF champ Glengoffe
Johnson, would be able to move himself into a great position to challenge the winner of the IBF title bout of Johnson and Roy Jones Jr. In featured action, Frederic Klose (34-4-0, 7 KOs) will square off against Michel Trabant (39-1-0, 18 KOs) for the EBU Welterweight title and Sergei Dzindziruk (27-0-0, 19 KOs) will face Mamadou Thiam (41-3-0, 38 KOs) for the EBU Light Middleweight title. Also seeing action are Ina Menzer (3-0-0, 2 KOs), Julia Sahin (3-0-0, 1 KO), debuts Sebastian Zbik and Ali Ahraoui.
In other news, on the July 24th card hosted by Sauerland Event, the main event–7’1″ heavyweight Nicolay Valuev (36-0, 27 KOs) is now looking for another opponent to square off against. The most recent opponent, the “Clones Colossus” Kevin McBride (31-4-1, 26 KOs) pulled out of the bout just before the ink on the contract even dried. Valuev, one of Europe’s top heavyweights, is now looking for another fighter to fill the vacancy.