By Per Ake Persson

The White Buffalo, Francois Botha, retained the WBF heavyweight title with a split decision over twelve hard fought, messy, mauling and exciting rounds of boxing against Timo Hoffmann on this SES show at Boerdeland Hall in Magdeburg.

It was scored 117-110 and 114-113 for Botha and 114-113 for Hoffmann. After ten, Hoffmann was a champion on two cards but the so called "German Oak" fell in the eleventh and could well have been stopped in the last round as he, totally spent, hung on to Botha with a friendly referee in Dutchman Robert Verwijs giving him a lot of breaks.

Botha was in relatively good shape, but is far from what he once was, still, he knows a lot about boxing, how to pace himself, when to punch and when to rest while Hoffmann, well, offensively he´s always been straight on and was thus a sucker for Botha´s heavy overhand right.=0 A

Also important was Botha´s straight right hands to the body of the big German. After six, it seemed as if the South African would win easily but Hoffmann, physically strong and durable, came on and put pressure on Botha.

Then in the eleventh, Botha connected with a big right, Hoffmann was hurt, tried to hold on but eventually went down. The bell rang as soon as the eight count was over with. Hoffmann came out desperate in the final round and was soon in seriously trouble again.

What looked like a genuine knockdown was ruled a slip and Hoffmann continued to ship heavy righthanders throughout the round, holding and wrestling, lasting the distance but the fight was lost.

In the chief support, super middle Robert Stieglitz won every round over Czech Jindrich Velecky in a non-title ten-rounder and should have stopped him, but somehow allowed his opponent to survive and last the full distance.

Slovenian welter Jan Zaveck outscored Polish spoiler Arek Malek over six. Zaveck will next headline a show at home in Maribor June 19.

Local stars Oliver Guettel and Tommy Altmann, both welters, both looked lucky in their respective six-rounders. Guettel got a draw against Anthony Ukeh while Altmann won a split decision over Pietro D´Alessio.

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Boxing News Tags: Anthony Ukeh, Arek Malek, Francois Botha, Jan Zaveck, Oliver Guettel, Pietro D Alessio, Timo Hoffmann, Tommy Altmann