European Boxing News: Sam, Sylvester, Sturm, Pascal, Gulyakevich, Sanavia

By Per Ake Persson

The EBU have declared Sinan Samil Sam as winner in the fight for the vacant European Heavyweight title against Paolo Vidoz on July 4. The fight was scored a draw but one of the judges – Frenchman Robin Dolpierre – first had the final round 10-9 for Sam, then crossed out the 9 and scored the round 10-10.

Based on this technicality, the EBU have revoked the decision and declared Sam as winner on scores of 115-113, 115-114 and 114-114. Sam vs Vidoz are to fight a rematch within 90 days and judging by their first fight we can look forward to another even, difficult to score bout that can go either way.

Sam will receive the belt at a press conference in Ankara July 21. Now, all doors are open for Sam, declares Arena´s promoter Ahmet Oener in a press release.

German middle Sebastian Sylvester has relinquished the European belt to concentrate on an upcoming shot at the WBA title held by Felix Sturm. Mandatory challenger for Sylvester was Finnish boxer Amin Asikainen, who is now likely to get Armenian-German Khoren Gevor as co-challenger. Asikainen will still headline P 3 Boxing´s show in Turku on August 30.

Purse bids for the WBO Interim Super Middle title between Hungarian Karoly Balzsay and Canadian Jean Pascal will be held July 22, 11 AM at the Holiday Inn in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The minimum bid is 300,000 USD.

Vitalij Tajbert has accepted a position as mandatory challenger for European Junior Lightweight champ Sergey Gulyakevich. Tajbert, an exellent boxer, has thus vacated the European Union title he defended on July 5.

European Bantam champ Carmelo Ballone now has British titlist Ian Napa as mandatory challenger.

Romanian amateur star Christian Ciocan has signed with Spotlight Boxing: Ciocan, a heavyweight, will fight as Christian Hammer and is set to make his prodebut August 30 in Duesseldorf.

Stefano Zoff vs Anthony Mezaache will fight September 3 in Lyon for the European Union Lightweight title – it was originally scheduled for July 10.

Cristian Sanavia, former WBC and European champ, is the new official challenger for European Union Super Middle ruler Lolenga Mock.

Swiss middle Yves “TNT” Studer is official challenger for EE-EU title holder Vedran Akrap from Croatia. Studer´s promoters – Boxing Kings – wants the fight for their annual December 26 show in Berne.

German paper Bild Zeitung writes that if Sauerland Event wins purse bids for the WBA Heavyweight title fight between Nikolai Valuev and John Ruiz, they will do it August 30 at the Max Schmeling Hall in Berlin. This is where the first fight took place as well.