World Boxing Federation (WBF) Womens World Middleweight Champion, and one of the best Pound-For-Pound female boxers in the sport, Christina Hammer is set to make her seventh title-defence on March 1 at the GETEC Arena in Magdeburg, Germany.
Still only 23 years old, Dortmund’s undefeated Hammer (16-0, 8 KOs) will take on another German in 24-year-old former world champion Jessica Balogun (23-2, 11 KOs) from Aachen, who curiously goes by the nickname “The Hammer”.
The reigning champion won the WBF world title in February 2011, and made two defences that year. In 2012 she also retained her crown twice, before moving up to Super Middleweight in May 2013 to claim her second WBF world title with a clear victory over reigning champion Zita Zatyko.
Hammer, who was recently awarded WBF 2013 Female Fighter of the Year honours, relinquished the Super Middleweight title and made another two successful defences of the Middleweight championship in July and December, and she is now ready to start her 2014 campaign with a bang against Balogun.
Besides an early loss in her first year as a pro, 2008, Jessica Balogun has only come in second against another Pound-For-Pound candidate, unified Welterweight World Champion Cecilia Braekhus, whom she dropped a decision to in Denmark in 2012.
Balogun will be moving up in weight for her big opportunity, but she insists that the added weight will only make her stronger, that Hammer has never faced anybody with her style, and she is full of confidence that she has what it takes to spring the upset on March 1.
The Christina Hammer vs. Jessica Balogun World Boxing Federation World Middleweight title fight will be promoted by SES Boxing on a show that will we televised live in Germany by SAT1. It will also be available world-wide via internet stream on www.ran.de
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.
