European Boxing News: Golovkin, Balzsay, Asikainen, Lindberg

WBA “regular” champ Gennadyi Golovkin met today with his estranged promoter Universum in a German court. The parties couldn´t come to terms.

The court is likely to hand out its ruling sometime in January on this contractual dispute. With this Golovkin´s planned defence of the title December 10 in Berlin against Nilson Julio Tapia is off. Instead, the plan is now to stage Golovkin vs Tapia December 16 in Astana, Kazachstan.

The EBU have set December 6 at noon as deadline for Karoly Balzsay vs Amin Asikainen for the vacant European super middle title.

Swedish female junior middle Maria Lindberg won another minor title this past weekend with a clear win over 45-year old Diane Schwachober. Unfortunately Lindberg´s continued career underlines a major weakness in professional boxing as of the end of 2010: unified rules and unified suspensions.

Lindberg suffered during her brief amateur career serious head injuries and was after an amateur fight in 1999 even in coma for a few days, lost eyesight and suffered from loss of memory. She recovered though and wanted to comeback but was under the amateur rules (AIBA) suspended indefinitly.

Lindberg then wanted to turn pro but it took her until 2004 before she was able to make her debut in the US. When the Swedish Federation found out about this they notified ABC and Maria got a red flag to her name that is still there. Then in 2008 Lindberg was given a license by the BDB; the German Federation that holds the EBU membership.

The BDB, have just like SBF, the Swedish Federation, signed the EBU safety agreement where the members among other things promise to honor each others suspension. Not so in this case, despite what to a layman seems like overwhelming medical evidence the BDB insists that Lindberg is fit and able to fight – luckily they seem to be pretty alone in that but this case still underlines a major weakness in pro boxing.