Boxing In Germany: Sidorenko Keeps WBA Belt, Krasniqi Defeats Minto

There was a big bill last night at the Hans Schleyer Halle in Stuttgart, Germany, with the main event seeing Wladimir Sidorenko keeping his WBA Bantamweight crown with another draw against Panama’s Ricardo Cordoba in front of 7,000 fans.

Additionally, former European Heavyweight Champion Luan Krasniqi ended Brian Minto’s nine fight win streak and heavyweights Alexander Dimitrenko, Taras Bidenko, Richel Hersisia, Egon Roth and Dieter Roth were all victorious.

Sidorenko, 19-0-2 (6), and Cordoba, 29-1-2 (19), had initially squared off a year ago in Hamburg and fought to a draw. This time the result was no different than the first as in both cases, two judges scored the bouts dean even while a third had Sidorenko winning by a six or seven point margin.

A five foot eight inch bantamweight, Cordoba towers over Sidorenko at five foot four but the Panamanian southpaw wasn’t able to keep the steel chinned champion off.

The Hamburg based Ukrainian relentlessly came forward for all twelve rounds and controlled the pace of the bout but possessing little in the way of punching power, couldn’t hurt the challenger.

Cordoba caught Sidorenko often on the way in but was kept on the defensive for much of the bout and limited to abbreviated offensive actions.

With the win, Sidorenko retains his WBA title for the fourth time while Cordoba has now failed on three occasions to win a world title. The 24 year old Panamanian does hold a victory over current WBA Super Bantam champ Celestino Caballero and a rematch could be in the works.

On the undercard, the German victory parade of Pennsylvania slugger Brian “The Beast” Minto came to an end as the stocky, five foot eleven inch spoiler failed in his attempt to knock out the much taller former European titlist and ex-world title challenger Luan Krasniqi.

Minto, 27-2 (16), had ended the comeback hopes of the much loved German heavyweight Axel Schultz last November and Krasniqi, 30-2-1 (14), had vowed to avenge the loss.

The American import put pressure on Krasniqi for most of the twelve rounds but the German, a heavily decorated amateur champion, refused to simply stand in front of Minto, rather putting his boxing skills to good use.

Krasniqi simply had the better foot movement and set of skills, never letting Minto get into a groove and repeatedly nailing “The Beast” with stinging counters.