Per Ake Persson: November 28, Helsinki, Finland: Khoren Gevor stopped Amin Asikainen in the seventh round to win the vacant EBU middlewweight title in the headliner of P 3 Boxing´s and Live Nation´s big show at the Hartwall Arena that went out on PPV in Finland. The fight was stopped at 2:45 of the round when trainer Pekka Maeki retired his man who had just gotten up after a bad knockdown. British referee Mark Green then called for a timeout to look for Asikainen´s mouthpiece, Maeki had seen enough and did the right thing and stopped the fight.. Amin was hurt early in the round by a sweeping left swing from Gevor and just didn´t recover. Later in the round he was caught by a barrage of hooks and went down.
It was a tough, hardfought, far from clean fight, with Gevor, a southpaw, as the agressor. Late in the first he was wrongly credited with a knockdown as he wrestled Asikainen down. The Finn shook Khoren in the second with a couple of good left hooks and the 10 000 or so at the Hartwall Arena cheered. But in the third Gevor´s agressive style again took over and Asikainen seemed to wait for too long. Khoren was again shaken in the fourth and Amin seemed to have found the range to keep his opponent off him. In the sixth Gevor slipped and went down and now Asikainen was credited with a knockdown and a 10-8 round on all cards. Going in the seventh Gevor was trailing on points but turned it all around with one punch and then followed up.
Juho Haapoja won the vacant Finnish heavyweight title with a ninth round stoppage of Sami Elovaara. Haapoja was well ahead after eight when Elovaara, cut, bruised and swollen around both eyes was stopped.
Russian jr welter Dennis Shafikov won a technical decision over former WBA lightweight champ Raul Balbi, who was ruled out by the doctor after getting badly cut on the forehead after an accidental clash of heads.
“The Nordic Nightmare”, Robert Helenius, Sauerland Event´s Swedish/Finnish heavyweight, moved to 5-0 with a six round unanimous decision over Lithuanian Remigijus Ziausys.
Jr welter Edis Tatli won a close decision over Spaniard Juan Zapata after six hard fought rounds.
Ville Piispanen, also at jr welter, stopped Mexican Christian Chavez in the first of another six rounder.