Boxing News Boxing News
After many years as a nearly man, Panama’s Guillermo Jones finally fulfilled his promise as he ripped the WBA Cruiserweight title from reigning champion Firat Arslan at the Color Line Arena in Hamburg, Germany.
Arslan began the bout applying the kind of pressure that had won him the title against Virgil Hill almost a year ago but the challenger used his long experience to minimize the impact of the champion’s strategy.
Jones then began to masterfully outbox the German, hammering Arslan from angles and punishing the champion when Arslan did throw back return fire.
Arslan showed tremendous heart and toughness to keep going in the face of the heavy shelling and had success in spots but couldn’t deal with the speed and accuracy of the much taller, long armed challenger, suffering cuts in the seventh.
By the tenth frame, Arslan had very little left while Jones seemed fresh and still in full command of his arsenal, forcing a stoppage at 2:33 of the frame
Jones wins a world title after two failed tries and improves to 36-3-2 (28) while Arslan loses for the first time in twelve bouts and drops to 29-4-1 (18).
Dennis Inkin and Colombia’s Fulgencio Zuniga fought over the freshly vacant WBO Super Middleweight title that Joe Calzaghe vacated after 11 years.
Zuniga, 21-3-1 (18), brought the fight to Inkin, 34-0 (24), but couldn’t get a square bead on the Russian, who picked off the South American slugger and largely avoided Zuniga’s power shots to post a 118-110, 117-111 and 116-112 points win and become the new WBO 168 lb titlist.
In a WBC title eliminator between aging heavyweights, Germany based Cuban Juan Carlos Gomez, 44-1 (35), outboxed Ukraine’s Vladimir Virchis, 24-2 (20), for a 117-109, 117-110 and 115-111 win.
Ex-WBC Cruiser titlist Gomez canvassed Virchis in the third and that seemed to take away much of the former European Heavyweight Champ’s ambition. Gomez had a point taken away for straying low in the tenth but had more than enough cushion to capture the victory and the right to face the winner between the upcoming Samuel Peter vs. Vitali Klitschko WBC title bout.
Also on the bill was cruiserweight Alexander Alexeev, 16-0 (15), who won a WBO Intercontinental title bout against Rob Calloway, 70-8-2 (56), by a third round stoppage.
Super middle Lukas Wilaschek, super feather Rene Gonzalez, heavyweight Sebastian Koebler and Zsolt Bedak also enjoyed wins at the Color Line Arena.
