The World This Week by Oliver Fennell Nov 5th 2007

Oliver Fennell sums up the international action of interest. Results with relevance to British boxing are in bold. We will not reveal The Contender results out of respect for those who wish to watch the series without knowing what happened. October 30 Popular Colombian slugger Edison Miranda stepped up to super-middleweight and demolished Henry Porras in five rounds in Hollywood, Florida. Miranda was fighting for the first time since losing a middleweight world title eliminator to Kelly Pavlik in July. Porras once gave Carl Froch a decent test before losing in eight rounds. Former journeyman Mindaugas Kulikauskas continued his winning run with a third-round stoppage of Marek Zelo in Marijampole, Lithuania. Heavyweight Kulikauskas has bow won eight on the spin for an overall record of 13-9-2. Once regularly fed to the lions, somebody has obviously invested in Kulikauskas. In Britain, he has fought Mark Krence, Roman Greenberg, Scott Gammer, Albert Sosnowski, Danny Watts, John McDermott and Herbie Hide, who he beat on cuts. October 31 Former two-time world heavyweight champion Michael Moorer continued his winning comeback streak, but received a reality check from unheralded opponent Roderick Willis. Fighting in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Moorer was floored in the dying seconds of the final round and may not have got up had he not been saved by the bell to end the contest. As it was, Willis' near-upset came too late and Moorer, 39, was awarded a unanimous decision. November 2 Eddie Chambers filled the second vacancy in the search for Wladimir Klitschko's next mandatory challenger. The IBF ordered a four-man heavyweight tournament, and Chambers beat Clavin Brock on a split decision in Tacoma, Washington, a week after Alexander Povetkin stopped Chris Byrd. The winners will meet in a final eliminator early next year. A big upset at light-middleweight saw ex-champ Kassim Ouma outscored over 10 rounds by little-known Mexican Saul Roman in Cabazon, California. Ugandan Ouma lost for the second time in a row, having dropped a decision to Jermain Taylor in a middleweight title challenge last December. On the undercard, US-based Scot Craig McEwan went to 8-0 with a six-round points success over Anthony Cannon at middleweight. The paucity of Australian heavyweight talent was illustrated by Bob Mirovic and Colin Wilson meeting for fifth time – with Mirovic winning every encounter. The latest – and surely final – instalment of the rivalry took place in Queensland's Gold Coast, with Mirovic retaining the Australian championship with an eighth-round knockout. This must have been the last time we've seen these two sharing a ring, as not only has Mirovic proved his superiority time and time again, they are also both getting very long in the tooth. “Big Bob” is 41 and has had 50 fights, while Wilson 35, with 56 bouts to his name. Mirovic gave Danny Williams and Matt Skelton a couple of good scraps over here. Across the Tasman sea, a younger Antipodean heavyweight was having his own limitations exposed, as Nigerian visitor Friday Ahunanya knocked out Shane Cameron of New Zealand in the 12th round. Ahunanya retained WBO Asia Pacific and interim NABA belts, while the vacant interim PABA strap was also at stake. Ahunanya, incidentally, was not geographically eligible for any of these – but then this is a sport which awarded Irish-Kiwi Cameron the IBF Pan African belt for beating Croatian-Aussie Bob Mirovic, but did not sanction Cameron against a bona fide African for the same championship. On the Auckland undercard, convicted child-killer Soulan Pownceby went to 2-0 in his controversial career, outpointing Rasef Mumtaz over four cruiserweight rounds. November 3 Eclipsed by the attention lashed on Joe Calzaghe v Mikkel Kessler the same night was another pound-for-pound entrant. WBC super-featherweight titlist Juan Manuel Marquez dominated fellow Mexican Rocky Juarez over 12 rounds, winning a wide unanimous verdict in Tucson, Arizona. It was Marquez's first fight since dethroning modern legend Marco Antonio Barrera, who also fought Juarez twice (both wins). In the chief support, Robert Guerrero impressively bombed out Martin Honorio in 56 seconds to retain his IBF featherweight belt. November 4 Takefumi Sakata was held to a draw in the second defence of his WBA flyweight title. He was floored in the first by Thai challenger Denkaosan Kaovichit but rallied to retain his title. The judges were split three ways at the final bell in Saitama.

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