European Boxing News: Oral, Uzelkov, Santana, Bute, Levin, Asloum

By Per Ake Persson

German-Turkish middle Mahir Oral fights Kofi Jantuah on Arena Box Promotion’ss show in Istanbul November 18. Mahir comes in fresh from 50 rounds of sparring with WBA challenger Sebastian Sylvester. In other action, heavyweight Steffen Kretschmann takes on once highly touted Russian Denis Bakhtov while Konstantin Airich face one time WBF heavy champ Aleksander Jakob.

Ukrainian lightheavy Vyacheslav Uzelkov, reigning WBA Intercontinental champ, will defend the title November 15 in Kiev on a K2 East promotion. The show is billed as “Steel Power”.

It will be Dahianna Santana from the Dominican Republic that challenges WIBF lightweight champ Ramona Kuehne in one of the two headliners on SES promotion at the Maritim Hotel in Magdeburg November 28. In the other main bout, Natascha Ragosina will defend some of her many titles. SES have their WBC Youth welter champ Oliver Guettel on Spotlight Boxing´s show in Halle / Saale December 5.

IBF super middle champ Lucian Bute could be making a voluntary defence against one of the Sauerland fighters early next year – all is of course depending on how the turmoil after the controversial ending against Librado Andrade works out. Sauerland appears to have an option on Bute´s first voluntary defence and have announced plans for the champ to fight the Danish veteran Mads Larsen, possibly in Denmark. Another Sauerland fighter is also waiting for his chance and that is Vitaly Tsypko.

Florida-based Swedish heavy Attila Levin won´t fight again until next year. Levin returned this year after being out since 2005 and have scored two wins in his comeback.

The planned show for Tidaholm, Sweden, December 6 was most likely cancelled this very evening due to a lack of sponsors, who in turn pulled out due to the general financial crisis.

US based Kazach Beibut Shumenkov is likely to return after a brief break December 13 in Seattle. A former amateur standout, Shumenkov, 5-0, have been moved very fast.

WBA light fly champ Brahim Asloum is along with the Acaries brothers in Algeria and are looking into defending the title there.

Dutch super middle Orhan Delibas will take part in a farewell bout November 9 in Arnhem. The now 37-year old Delibas was an excellent amateur winning silver in the 1992 Olympics. As a pro Orhan have this far compiled a 24-2 record fighting on both sides of the Atlantic but he lost in two fights for the European title. Delibas dropped out of boxing in 2000 after losing to Roman Karmazin although there were rumors of comeback attempts but it wasn´t until May of this year he fought again.