Fight Production's heavyweight, from The Hague in The Netherlands, Richel Hersisia steps into the unknown when he faces 23-year-old Georgian Zurab Noniashvili from Tbilisi. A former youth and junior champion of his country, Noniashvili brings an excellent record of only two points losses in 13 professional fights into
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the scheduled 8-round clash with the former WBF 'world' champion, which will take place on Universum Box-Promotion's 'Champions Night' in Stuttgart, Germany on March 17.
It is difficult to gauge the true potential of Noniashvili, because all his bouts took place in Georgia
against national rivals. The two losses on his 10-2-1 (5 KO's) ledger came against 17-0 Mamuka Jikurashvili and 2-0 David Gegeshidze on points over 6 rounds last year. Before and after those back-to-back reverses, Noniashvili put together five wins each and in his last bout almost reversed that earlier defeat to Gegeshidze, coming away with a draw. Not to be dismissed, Zurab is taller, heavier and nine years younger than 'The Dutch Sonny Liston' Hersisia. "Noniashvili is a very solid operator with a good amateur background," said Hersisia's manager Olaf Schroeder, "We are aware that everybody will say 'So what?' if Richel wins, as I hope he does, because people don't know Noniashvili, but that doesn't bother us at this moment, because this is about improving and not so much about impressing. That guy is young and definately hungry, not a used-up journeyman."
Obviously, the German manager is referring to this being only the second fight for his charge under new trainer Torsten Schmitz. In his first outing together last October, Hersisia, 28-1 (22 KO's), easily blew out Brazilian Adenilson Rodrigues in two rounds. Having won a slew of minor titles (WBA Fedecentro, Dutch, WBF 'world', Netherlands Kingdom and Benelux belts) in his career, the hard-punching Dutchman is looking for a big fight in '07.
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