On Saturday December 7 at the Speedfit Sporthalle in Vienna, Austria, local promotional outfit Box-Team Vienna is staging a massive card featuring no less than four World Boxing Federation (WBF) title fights involving local fighters against tough foreign opposition.
Topping the bill, WBF Intercontinental Middleweight Champion Gogi “Lionheart” Knezevic, 25-4-1 (12), is set to defend his title against Georgian challenger Robinson Omsarashvili, 13-5-3 (7).
34-year-old Knezevic won the title last May defeating former European title-challenger Jozsef Matolcsi from Hungary, and the Omsarashvili-encounter will be his first defense. A victory could be a step closer to a shot at the vacant WBF World title.
Undefeated WBF Intercontinental Light Heavyweight Champion Timy Shala, 17-0 (7), will also be making his first title-defense, as he squares off with tough German Mounir Toumi, 15-11 (5), who is coming off five straight victories, the latest over former EU Champion Tony Averlant in France.
Nicknamed “The Bomber”, Shala captured the WBF title with a majority decision over Tomasz Adamek from the Czech Republic in May, and has since stayed busy with a stoppage over Romanian Vasile Dragomir in his birth-country Kosovo this past October.
Austria-based Hungarian puncher Laszlo Toth, 16-0-1 (13), will be in with his stiffest test to date, as he faces the very experienced Giorgi Ungiadze, 23-16 (10), from Georgia for the vacant WBF International Welterweight crown.
This will be 25-year-old Toth’s first title fight in the pro ranks, while Ungiadze (29) has fought for championships seven times since turning professional in 2005, faced some very established names, and is the reigning Georgian national champion.
In the fourth WBF title fight of the evening, and a battle of former world title-challengers, Eva Voraberger, 16-3 (8), fights Fleis Djendji, 16-20-1 (10), from Serbia for the vacant Womens Intercontinental Flyweight championship.
In her latest outing, Voraberger came up short when she fought Raja Amasheh for the WBF world title at Super Flyweight, losing a competitive fight by unanimous decision in September of this year. A victory over Djendji could put her in line for a second crack at world honors.
As in September, I once again ran out of gas in the 10th & 11th championship rounds of October & November with this column, but I recovered to complete them and will unleash a few more flurries to close out the 12th and final round.
In the first week of October, Hassan N’Dam won a UD over Curtis Stevens in an eliminator for the right to challenge Jermaine Taylor who defeated aging Sam Soliman to regain the IBF Middleweight title. How Taylor even earned this title shot is another story altogether, but it is all irrelevant as he is now the champion. However he will not have too much time to savor his victory as he has assault and battery charges pending against him and an upcoming court fight that may turn out to be the toughest fight of his life, just when things started to look up for him in boxing, we wish him luck.
