The World This Week by Eric Armit Jul 9th 2008

Scottish boxing guru Eric Armit takes over BBN's weekly global digest from Oliver Fennell, who is too busy sunning himself in Thailand to bother with the likes of us. And who can blame him? July 3 Buenos Aires, Argentina Hugo "Pigou" Garay made it third time lucky as he won a version of the light-heavyweight title at the third attempt. In front of a big crowd at the Luna park he clearly decisioned the former EBU champion southpaw Yuri Barashin from the Ukraine on scores of 120-118, 118-111 and 118-110 to lift the vacant WBA title. Garay had lost two close points verdicts to Zsolt Erdei for the WBO title in 2004 and 2005 in a 31-2 record. Barashin drops to 25-3. The title was vacant due to the surprise retirement of Danny Green. July 3 Cartagena, Colombia Former IBF super-middleweight champion Alejandro Berrio returned to action with an easy third round stoppage of Elias Ruiz. This was the second win for Berrio since dropping his title to Lucien Bute in October. The lanky Colombian is 27-5 with 26 wins inside the distance. July 4 Ankara, Turkey The EBU heavyweight title remains vacant after local favourite Sinan Samil San and Italian Paolo Vidoz ended up all square after 12 rounds . One official had it for Sam, but the other two saw it as a draw. Two British veterans came out with very different decisions on the show. Herbie Hide retained his WBC International cruiserweight t title by coming off the floor to clearly outpoint Nuri Seferi, Herbie's ninth win in a row, but 42-year-old Henry Akinwande lost a close six rounds verdict to Czech heavyweight Ondrej Pala who is now 20-2. July 4 Accra, Ghana A mild upset saw Godfrey Sowah halt Bilal Mohammed in eight rounds. This was a final eliminator for the Commonwealth lightweight title, so, despite his modest 11-3 record, Sowah is now the official challenger to Amir Khan. However, Khan is in a voluntary position so it will 2009 before Sowah gets his chance, and a lot can change by then. Middleweight James “Obede” Toney returned after 18 months of inactivity with a points win over Mohammed Bameyi. James has a 22-3-1 record but two of those losses were to Lucien Bute and Roman Karmazin and the draw was with WBA challenger Randy Griffin. July 4 Hidalgo, Texas, USA British middleweight Craig McEwan made it 11 wins, 7 inside the distance, as he halted modest Juan Carlos Sanchez in 3 rounds. In the main bout Mexican middleweight/super-middleweight Enrique Ornelas/Andrade (brother of Librado Andrade) had an easy one as he halted Darryl Salmon in two rounds and is 28-4. July 5 Las Vegas, USA Explosive hardly describes the short and wild battle between Ricardo Torres and Kendall Holt. Torres had retained his WBO light-welterweight title with a very controversial stoppage win over Holt last September so there was genuine bad blood between the guys. Torres came out throwing bombs and dropped Holt twice and was closing in for the finish only to walk into a right hand that laid him out. All of this in just 61 seconds. It is just as well it ended then as Holt suffered a damaged his wrist with the shot. The 27-year-old from Paterson is 23-2, but was not rated a puncher. Colombian Torres, who had Miguel Cotto on the floor is 30-2. On the same show light-welterweight hope Lamont Peterson made it 25 wins by halting Rogelio Castaneda in nine. July 5 Georgetown, Guyana Howard Eastman collected the Guyanese middleweight title with a majority verdict over Denny “Deadly” Dalton. Denny pushed the action, but Howard was never really troubled and finished the stronger to end a popular winner on scores of 116-114, 116-112 and 114-114. July 5 Halle, Germany This time Felix Sturm got it right as he coolly counter-punched his way to a clear points win over Randy Griffin and retained his WBA middleweight title. These two had fought a draw for the title in October but this time Felix won by three, four and eight points on the scorecards. Sturm is 30-2-1with one of those losses being a close one to Oscar De La Hoya in 2004 July 5 East London, South Africa A big night for South African boxers and for promoter Branko Milenkovic as two of his boxers won eliminators for IBF title shots. Ali Funeka, a 5'10” lightweight floored Zahir Raheem four times on the way to a crushing four round kayo win and flyweight Moruti Mthalane outclassed experienced Hussein Hussein on scores of 118-110 twice and 119-109. The 30-year-old Funeka is 30-1-2 and is unbeaten since 2002 with 25 wins inside the distance. Mthalane, who is 25, has 22 wins in 23 fights.

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