European Boxing News: Oral, Gamboa, Palle, Sauerland, Kessler, Campillo

ByBoxing Press

By Per Ake Persson

Arena Box Promotion returns to the Kugelbake-Hall in Cuxhaven January 23 with a big show headlined by middleweight Mahir Oral, heavyweight Konstantin Airich and super middle Christian Pawlak.

Arich faces American Chris Koval while opponents for Oral and Pawlak will be announced. Czech heavy Ondrej Pala, a good talent, is also on the bill and might face Robert Hawkins. The main bouts will be televised by EuroSport.

The same night Arena is also in New York City with Yuriorkis Gamboa defending the WBA featherweight title against Tanzanian Rogers Mtagwa live on HBO.

Mogens Palle, Sauerland Event and German network ARD are in a Danish court these days regarding a dispute that began back in 2006. The case is about the Mikkel Kessler vs Markus Beyer fight for the WBA and WBC super middle titles. The fight went ahead in Copenhagen and Palle tells Danish media he had acquired the TV rights for the Scandinavian countries and intended to stage it PPV.

Sauerland Event had the right to Germany with ARD televising and some other countries. However, according to Palle, Sauerland and ARD refused to block the signal to Scandinavia which meant many households could watch Kessler knockout Beyer almost for free through cable TV and due to that Palle couldn´t sell the event PPV. Palle is now suing for 13,5 million DKK (around 1,8 million EUR).

When the dispute began Sauerland argued that it wasn´t technically possible to block the signal to Scandinavia. This case is not connected to the ongoing dispute between Palle and Mikkel Kessler / Sauerland Event and Showtime.

German junior middle Jack Culcay will indeed turn pro December 19 in Schwerin. The former World amateur champ has been announced on for the show for some time but there was an uncertainty if Jack would get the necessary time off from his current employer, the German military, to do it.

Welter Zapir Rasulov (formerly known as Raseev) takes on Charles Damas for the vacant IBO Youth title December 11 in Berlin. Rasulov, 20-0, has previously held no less than four Youth titles in different world bodies so should he beat Damas it must be some kind of record.

The latest obstacle to overcome to stage the rematch between WBA light heavy champ Gabriel Campillo and Beibut Shumenov is reportedly Universum Box Promotion, who claims options on Campillo signed before he beat then champion Hugo Hernan Garay, who was signed to a promotional to Universum.

The WBA has sanctioned a rematch between Campillo vs Shumenov with February 28 as deadline. Tundra vs Barcelo, one of the parties involved, has on their website the fight on for February 18 with Las Vegas as site but apparently no deal is struck yet.

IBC cruiser champ Pawel Kolodziej defends the title against US veteran Rob Calloway December 18 in Lodz, Poland on Bullit Knockout´s final show of the year. Heavyweight prospect Andrzej Wawrzyk faces experienced former amateur star Alex Mazikin in what will be an interesting test for Andrzej. Light heavy Dawid Kostecki is in against South African Andre Thysse.