Saturday, September 24th sees an excellent heavyweight card with three fights at the Dima-Sportcenter in Hamburg, Germany. None of the fighters involved are Top Ten contenders, although some are former title challengers or hot prospects on the rise. Saturday’s trio of heavyweight bouts will not produce a challenger for the Klitschko brothers or shake up the heavyweight landscape in any way. Instead, the Hamburg fight night is a brilliant example of club-level matchmaking, and promises to be extremely entertaining. It’s the sort of thing I used to love driving to the Blue Horizon, the Pikesville Armory or Michael’s on 8th Avenue for.
The action starts with a clash between two veterans, both past their primes, as former cruiserweight champion Juan Carlos Gomez continues his comeback against Darnell “Ding-a-Ling Man” Wilson. I’ve been watching Wilson from the beginning of his career, and as he has been on a pronounced losing streak lately, it looks like he has been set-up as a tomato can for the comebacking Cuban ex-champion. However, Wilson always had a let it all hang out, running the ragged edge of disaster boxing style. In short, Gomez will knock him out, but Wilson will make it fun to watch while it lasts.
Next is Denis Boytsov, the rising Russian prospect who is returning to the ring after a ten-month layoff against Matthew Greer.. Boytsov is 28-0, and clearly looking to shake the rust off, and rust or not, this is another fight I don’t expect to last long. “Gator” Greer is a big journeyman with a solid punch, but not much in the way of skill. I also think he has a suspect chin, because James Toney (who is a featherfist at heavyweight) knocked him out in two. Once again, the fight will end early and be fun to watch while it lasts.
The headliner is Alexander Dimitrenko vs. Michael Sprott for Dimitrekno’s European Heavyweight Title. The last time most Americans saw Dimitrenko, it was when diminutive “Fast” Eddie Chambers boxed his ears off two years ago. That was quite a sight, because Dimitrenko is 6’7″ and 255 lbs to Chambers’ 6’1″ and 210 lbs. Sprott is a British journeyman, best known for his knockout of Audley Harrison and a string of entertaining losses to fringe contender-level heavyweights. However, like any good British journeyman, he is pretty durable and doesn’t mind mixing it up.
Dimitrenko would do well to use his height, reach and robotic Soviet-style boxing skills to keep Sprott at a distance, because he doesn’t seem to know what to do with a guy who gets inside his long arms, and in my opinion, Dimitrenko is the most protected heavyweight fringe contender out there. I think the matchmaking here was good, because Sprott will be game all night and out-boxed all night, but there is a little upset potential in there.
Once again, this Hamburg fight night has no game-changing potential for the sport of boxing, but does boxing need to be about world titles or HBO broadcasting to be entertaining? This fight card is very much the sort of thing that I’d drive to if I lived in northern Germany or the Low Countries, put down some money for the cheap seats, and enjoy watching over a couple of beers. In other words, it’s a classic club card and promises good entertainment value for the euro.
