11.03.08 – The “Dancing Destroyer” once more did what he does best. In Halle (Saale) Herbie Hide “destroyed” Rüdiger May from Cologne (Germany) to defend his WBC International cruiserweight championship. Hide had May down once in the first round. After 1:47 minute in round 2 referee Massimo Barrovecchio (Italy) stopped the fight because May was not able to defend himself against Herbie’s overwhelming attacks….
Herbie: “I am a warrior. Warriors go to war to kill – and that’s what I did! Now I got a message for David Haye: Don’t go up to heavyweight! I’ve been there and done that! Come and fight me! Wherever whenever – I’m ready for you! I’ll beat you up like you’ve never been beaten up before!”
Local hero Steffen Kretschmann won his first pro-title capturing the German international championship by stopping Latvia’s Aleksejs Kosobokovs in the 7th. Kosobokovs suffered a bad cut early in the fight which keeped on opening up. In 19 pro-fights the Latvian was stopped for the first time. For Kretsche it was the 11th win in his 11th fight including 10 stoppages.
ARENA-CEO Ahmet Öner: “It’s always hard to fight in front of your home crowd because the expectations are extremely high. Steffen started slowly but finished the fight in a good way. To me he is the best German heavyweight and he could already fight and beat anybody in the world except the reigning world champions. I’d like to see him against Luan Krasniqi soon. That would be a good test and help him on his way to the top.”
In the third title fight of the night “Super” Sergej Sorokin won the WBC international super lightweight championship by stopping Kanat Kartenbaev in 6.
German cruiserweight prospect Tino Groß scored his 4th win in his 4th pro-fight by knocking out Dariusz Balla from Poland in the 1st. Turkish Olympic silver medallist Atagün Yalcinkaya won his pro-debut against Sergey Tasimov by t.k.o. in the 3rd.
The next ARENA-show is coming up in only three days. On Friday, March 14th Markus Beyer and Cuban heavyweight sensation Odlanier Solis headline the show in Munich’s “Zenith”-Kulturhalle. The show will be broadcasted LIVE by German Pay-TV station Premiere. There are still tickets available at the counters.