The World this Week by Eric Armit Jul 15th 2008

July 8 Donets, Ukraine Local fighter Oleg Yefimovych won the vacant European featherweight title with a wide points verdict over previously unbeaten Spaniard Sergio Blanco. A former European Junior gold medallist, Yefimovych has a 14-1 record. The 32-year-old Blanco had fought a technical draw for the title with Alberto Servidei last October and drops to 18-1-1. On the same show the EBU No 1 rated welterweight Vyacheslav Senchenko remained unbeaten with a points win over former unbeaten EBU champion Frederic Klose. Senchenko, who retained his WBA Intercontinental title, is 27-0 including a seventh round stoppage over Stuart Elwell in March. Oldie Klose, now 38-years-old, lost on points to Yuri Nuzhnenko for the vacant interim WBA title in December and is 41-7. July 8 Las Vegas, Nevada The oldie theme continued as Kevin Kelley returned after 20 months out with an easy points win over Jaime Palma. Southpaw Kevin, who was WBC featherweight champion in 1994 and lost on a fourth round kayo to Prince Naseem Hamed in 1997, raised his record to 60-8-2, but at 41, and up at lightweight for this one, you wonder why he bothers. July 9 Houston, USA Local light-heavyweight Chris Henry returned with a good win as he battered Rubin Williams to a stoppage defeat in six rounds. Henry has 22 wins against a loss to Adrian Diaconu for the interim WBC title in April. With Chad Dawson refusing to fight Diaconu the Romanian is now full champion. For “Hollywood” Williams this was his third loss in a row in a 29-5-1 record. He was halted by Jeff Lacy in 2005 in a challenge for the IBF super-middleweight title. July 11 Montreal, Canada Puerto Rican southpaw Daniel Santos became a “world” champion for the third time as he produced a devastating southpaw left to kayo WBA light-middleweight champion Joachim Alcine in round six of a close fight. It was pretty even until Santos scored heavily with the left in the fifth and finished things off in the sixth. Santos won the WBO welterweight title in 2000 and the vacant WBO light-middleweight title in 2002, losing it to Sergiy Dzinziruk in 2005. He beat Neil Sinclair and Takaloo in title fights here in 2000 and 2002 respectively and has a 32-3-1 record with one no contest. It was the second defence for Alcine who lost for the first time after 30 wins. On the same show Santos got a view of the man who might be his next challenger as Alex Bunema halted Argentinian Walter Matthysse in six rounds. The pressure fighter from the Democratic Republic of Congo stopped Roman Karmazin in an upset in January and is 30-5-2. July 11 Philadelphia, USA Former world heavyweight title challenger Mike Grant made no waves at all as he returned to action with a plodding points win over Demetrice King. Out for ten months, Grant, who will be 36 next month, was his old frustrating self. He has all of the tools but can't find the power switch. He was kayoed in two rounds by Lennox Lewis in a challenge for the WBC and IBF titles in 2000 and stoppage losses to fringe guys such as Jameel McCline and Dom Guinn have shown his limitations. He is now 44-3 but the only place he is going is to 36-years of age. July 11 Chicago, USA Former WBC light-heavyweight champion Tomasz Adamek continued his cruiserweight campaign with a public sparring match/fight against a way over his head Gary Gomez who took a beating but stayed on his feet before retiring at the end of round six. Ranked No 1 by the IBF after his win over O'Neil Bell in April Adamek has a 35-1 record. July 12 Hamburg, Germany Wladimir Klitschko retained his WBC and IBF heavyweight titles with an eleventh round kayo of Tony Thompson who put up some stubborn resistance. Both fighters suffered an early cut from a clash of heads but as the fight progressed Wlad began to wear Thompson down and find him with the right hand, and It was a big right that finished it in the eleventh. Next up for Wlad is unbeaten Alex Povetkin. Wlad is 51-3 and Thompson is 31-2 (he did actually lose a third one to Maurice Harris in a heavyweight competition but it was not recognised as official). In a light-middleweight bout Ukrainian Zaurbek Baysangurov made a successful first defence of his European title as his Moldovan challenger Ivan Gontsa refused to come out for round eight. It was a rough match with Gontsa reportedly suffering a broken nose and Baysangurov a bad cut and getting a warning for low blows. Baysangurov is 19-0. Southpaw Gontsa, who won and lost to Kevin McIntyre as an amateur, is 16-2-2. July 12 Hermosillo, Mexico A storm of protest from the Mexican crowd met the split verdict rendered for Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. over Matt Vanda. The main focus of the anger was a ridiculous 100-90 score by one of the judges. The others were 97-93 and 95-96. A strong finish from the St Paul fighter did not offset the early lead Chavez had built. But as Vanda was 4-5 in his last nine this was not an impressive performance by Chavez who is now 37-0-1; but still being protected. Vanda is 38-7. In the nominal main event Ulysses “Archie” Solis retained his IBF light-flyweight title by decisioning Filipino challenger Glenn Donaire. The scores of 120-107, and 120-108 twice show Solis as a clear winner but Donaire pushed him all the way. Solis has six defences and is 27-1-2. He is the brother of super-featherweight Jorge Solis. Donaire, the brother of IBF flyweight champion Nonito Donaire, falls to 17-4-1 having come down from flyweight where he lost to Vic Darchinyan for the IBF title in 2006. Former undefeated WBA light-flyweight champion Koki Kameda also appeared on the show and halted Marino Montiel in two rounds. Now a flyweight, the flamboyant 21-year-old southpaw has 18 wins and will win another world title.

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