By Marco Bratusch

Saturday night in Dresden, Germany, Karo Murat (31-3-1, 20 KOs) won the vacant European light-heavyweight title – a belt relinquished by the now retired Robert Stieglitz, who was at ringside – for the second time in his career with an eleven round technical knock-out over formerly undefeated Dominic Boesel (24-1, 9 KOs), in the main event of an SES promoted night.

The clash developed fairly balanced and palatable until the end. Murat, a former IBF world title challenger, was the slightly shorter and physically stronger man. He started better in the first three rounds putting pressure and cutting the ring off to close Boesel at corners to target mainly to his long-limbed body. His good shots also made Boesel for a while at the end of the third, just before the bell. Boesel in this stage found no alternatives than moving sidewise and punching back in spurts in order to keep his foe at distance, but he looked too tentative and his defense appeared too open once Murat got closer.

However, Boesel made some adjustments and took the control of the fight back from round four until the tenth – perhaps excepting the eighth – boxing more actively on his feet, anticipating Murat’s action and adding the jab to his weapons. The rounds were generally begun better by Boesel, while Murat appeared the more active fighter in the final stage of each fraction. At the end of round ten, Boesel looked to touch with some straight shots that put Murat out of balance forcing him to touch the deck with both gloves, but referee Terry O’Connor ruled it a slip.

However, Murat’s proud reaction popped up in round eleven as he pursued Boesel through the ring blowing power punches that hurt a tiring Boesel and eventually led to a series of wild hooks which landed flush on his face, forcing the referee to halt the contest.

The new, undefeated European cruiserweight title holder Yves Ngabu (18-0, 13 KOs), who won the vacant belt stopping late-replacing foe Tamas Lodi in round four at the beginning of June in Belgium, is now expected to fight against young Bilal Laggoune (21-1-2, 11 KOs), another Belgian fighter, on September 29th in Roosdaal, Belgium. The voluntary defense will be promoted by Filiep Tampere. Laggoune, aged 24, has already fought for the vacant European 200 lbs belt when he scored a draw against puncher Dmytro Kucher in 2015. He has recently dropped a split decision against experienced Doudou Ngumbu in the lower weight class, which is the only loss in his boxing record.

The highly anticipated bout between Frenchman Guillame Frenois (44-1, 10 KOs), the current European jr lightweight titlist, and mandatory challenger Juli Giner (21-2-1, 8 KOs), from Barcélona, Spain, has been rescheduled for October 21 according to Gallego Prada Promociones that won the respective bid. The clash was initially expected to take place during last June but eventually fell apart when Giner suffered a hand injury during the final step of his training camp. Frenois so switched to late substitute Ruddy Encarnaciòn, winning a lopsided twelve-round decision in France on June 24 to retain his title.