World Boxing Federation (WBF) World Super Welterweight Champion Anderson “Pantera” Clayton is set to defend his title in a rematch with the man he took it from, when he faces former champion Sebastien “Coco” Madani in Rumilly, France on May 3.
In their original fight, in April of last year, Madani was stopped on a cut in the second round, and a rematch was basically agreed between the two camps before the boxers left the ring. However, for various reasons it is only coming to fruition now.
Since defeating Madani last year, hard-punching Clayton, 42-8 (36), has defended his world title once. Last October he won a technical decision over Argentinean Dario Fabian Pucheta in front of 10.000 fans in a big home-coming fight in Sao Paolo.
Sebastien Madani, 35-2 (10), has also only fought once since his unlucky night against Clayton, as he won an unspectacular unanimous decision over journeyman Stanislav Sakic in December. Since then he has been focused on revenge, and regaining the world title in his hometown on May 3.
33-year-old Madani, also a former French national, European and WBF Intercontinental titlist, first won the WBF World crown in June 2012 defeating Spaniard Jose Del Rio. It was a major disappointment to not only him, but also the entire town of Rumilly when he lost the title already in his first defense against Clayton.
The rematch is expected to be a big draw, and has already received plenty of local media attention. Clayton believes he can surprise Madani again, and Madani feels he only lost the title because he was not able to continue due to injury.
The encounter is a classic boxer vs. puncher match-up, and while Clayton (35) has no problems going into “Madani territory”, he is aware that his best chance of success will be to get another stoppage. Madani on the other hand, is confident that his boxing skills can carry him to victory.
The Clayton vs. Madani WBF World Super Welterweight title rematch will be promoted by Europrom, headed by Gerard Teysseron.
www.worldboxingfederation.net
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.
