By Marco Bratusch
At Monday’s EBU purse bid in Rome, Italy, French promoter Gerard Teysseron of Europrom offered 42,001 Euros as the only bidder to guarantee to his company the rights for staging the European flyweight contest, at stake for young co-challengers Vincent Legrand (25-0, 15 KOs), an unbeaten former continental titlist, and Charlie Edwards (11-1, 4 KOs), a former world title challenger from England, United Kingdom.or date nor venue for such bout was announced yet by the winning promoter.
26-year-old Martin J. Ward (18-0-2, 8 KOs), a rangy junior lightweight promoted by Matchroom Boxing, will step in as a substitute for the European contest facing Spaniard Juli Giner (21-2-1, 8 KOs), promoted by Gallego Prada. The two boxers will square off on December 13 at the historic York Hall in London, United Kingdom. Giner was scheduled to fight Stephen Smith for the aforementioned belt, however, the Liverpudlian was lately offered to fight against former WBC champion Francisco “El Bandido” Vargas as a co-feature bout of a Golden Boy Promotion junior lightweights filled card at Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas on December 9th and grabbed the chance.
Last Saturday near Paris, France, Hadillah Mohoumadi (23-4-1, 16 KOs) retained his European 168 lbs belt edging his countryman Cristopher Rebrassé (25-6-3, 6 KOs) over twelve rounds for his first, voluntary defense. The fight was a fairly heated, two-sided affair, with the three judges at ringside scoring 117-111, 117-111 and 115-113 all in favor of the champion. The 37-year-old Mohoumadi has now to face mandatory challenger Stanislav Kashtanov (36-2, 21 KOs) to keep defending his belt. On the undercard of the MK Events boxing event, televised on Canal Plus in France, former European Union (EU) light-heavyweight titlist Hakim Zoulikha (24-10, 10 KOs) lost to Nadjib Mohammedi (39-5, 23 KOs) over 10 rounds in a no-title bout.
Unbeaten Italian featherweight Carmine Tommasone (17-0, 5 KOs), better known for being one of the three professional boxers who competed in the last 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – where he lost in the second match to Cuban bronze medallist Làzaro Alvarez in the lightweight division – has been appointed by EBU as co-challenger for the vacant European Union (EU) featherweight title with the other co-challenger Kamil Laszczyk (24-0, 8 KOs), from Poland. The respective parties to have time until November 27th to finalize a private deal for such contest.
In other news, Tunisian lightweight Mohammed Khalladi (8-7-1, 5 KOs), who boxes out of Genova, Italy, is set to face Eloy Iglesias (17-4-2, 2 KOs) for the vacant IBF Mediterranean title, scheduled November 25th in Iglesias’ homeland of Zaragoza, Spain, for a Rimer Box promoted boxing night.