Paris United will face their toughest task of the season at the Palais des Sports Marcel Cerdan on Friday night as they try to overturn last week’s 4-1 away loss to Baku Fires to keep their hopes of making the World Series of Boxing team finals alive.
The Paris United squad that is set to face the Baku Fires is undoubtedly a force to be reckoned with and includes three boxers who finished the regular season in the top three of their respective weight categories.
Nordine Oubaali will be looking to fire up the home crowd in the opening bantamweight contest against Mongolia’s Tugstsogt Nyambayar. Oubaali finished the season in second place in the individual rankings and will go on to contest the individual title at bantamweight at the end of May in Guiyang, China against Kanat Abutalipov of the Astana Arlans.
The 24 year-old southpaw says of opponents Baku Fires, “They are a good team who box very well, with valiant boxers who never give up. But, technically and physically, we have a more beautiful style: we are cleaner and more precise.”
Nyambayar is bound to cause problems for Oubaali. The 18-year-old Mongolian took the silver medal in the 51kg division at the 2009 AIBA World Championships on his debut international tournament when he was only 17 years old.
In the lightweight contest Rachid Azzedine will take on Koba Pkhakadze from Georgia. Azzedine finished the season in third place in the individual ranking on the back of five straight wins and one technical draw in week 11. The technical draw cruelly dashed Azzedine’s hopes of making the individual championships when the bout was stopped with only seconds left in the first round after he sustained a cut.
Pkhakadze had a difficult regular season in which he went head-to-head three times against the eventual number one Yerzhan Mussafirov of the Astana Arlans. He was beaten each time by Mussafirov and the 27-year-old southpaw finished the season with only one win in five bouts.
Michel Tavares will make his fifth appearance for Paris United at middleweight on Friday. He finished the season with a 3-1 record, losing only to the strong Sergiy Derevyanchenko of Dolce & Gabbana Milano Thunder, who finished top of the individual rankings. Tavares is the only boxer in Friday’s Paris United squad to finish the season outside the top ten in his weight category.
The 22-year-old southpaw will face the Baku Fires’ mighty home-grown Soltan Migitinov, who finished two of his four bouts in the regular season inside the distance. He is also the only boxer this season to have defeated the powerful Kanat Slam of the Astana Arlans, who dismissed Russell Lamour of the Los Angeles Matadors by TKO in last week’s semi-final. The undefeated Migitinov finished second in the middleweight ranking and will be heading to the individual championships in China to face Derevyanchenko for the title.
Brahim Asloum is relying on his Croatian duo of Hrvoje Sep and Filip Hrgovic in the two heaviest weight categories.
Light heavyweight Sep’s 5-1 record in the regular season will hold him in good stead against Baku’s Rizvan Alimuradov, who has only one victory in three fights under his belt, while 18-year-old heavyweight Hrgovic, will be taking on Russian Sergey Kharitinov, who made his WSB debut only in week 12 of the competition.
Sep was beaten to the individual championships by team-mate Ludovic Groguhe, who finished second in the rankings with an unbeaten 5-0 record for the season – a record that he extended in Baku last weekend as the only Paris boxer to win his contest.
Hrgovic and team-mate Tony Yoka are two formidable young heavyweights in the Paris United team. Yoka almost had the win in the bag against number two ranked Magomedrasul Medzhidov last week but was floored by a direct hit in the third round that turned the fight.
The young Croatian beat team-mate Yoka to the world youth title last year in Baku and is sure to be an equally tough opponent for his much older rival (Kharitinov is 30 years old) this weekend.
