Group A, Week 3: Will the Thunder ground the Eagles?
This week’s key battle in Group A looks set to be the stylish Dolce & Gabbana Italia Thunder taking on Group leaders, the Eagles of Team Germany, at home as the C2 weight group featuring the Flyweights (52kg), Lightweights (60kg), Welterweights (69kg), Light Heavyweights (81kg) and Super Heavyweights (91+kg), takes to the ring.
Will the German’s impressive start to the season continue or can the Italia Thunder and Ukraine Otamans reel them in? Will the USA Knockouts get back to back wins with a team of veterans or will Algeria get their first points on the board? We discuss this and more.
Dolce & Gabbana Italia Thunder vs. Team Germany
Despite all the pre-season talk being focused on the Ukraine Otamans and Italia Thunder, it is in fact the German outfit that is topping the table so far, with a total of five wins and no defeat in their single match so far against the Algeria Desert Hawks. The Italians will want to crush German optimism this weekend and put themselves in control of the group early. With main rivals, the Ukraine Otamans, having the easier task of the Argentina Condors, this has now become a key battle for the Italians.
The importance both teams are placing on the match can be seen in their respective line-ups. Veteran campaigner Vincenzo Picardi will get his fourth season underway in the opening match of the evening against German new boy Hamza Touba at Flyweight. Touba made an impressive start to his WSB career by beating fellow debutant, Desert Hawk Amine Khentache in Week 1. But how will he fare against more seasoned opposition? The scrappy Domenico Valentino is straight back from winning a World bronze medal in October. Another Italian veteran, he will still have his hands full with Irishman David Joyce who will be boxing for the Eagles at Lightweight. Indeed the pair met in Season I with Joyce taking the win.
The bout of the evening of course will be the Super Heavyweight clash between former British Lionheart Joseph Joyce, who makes his Italia Thunder debut and World bronze medallist and Team Germany poster-boy Eric Pfeifer. Only Olympic gold medallist Oleksandr Usyk was able to stop Joyce last year, whilst Pfeifer is unbeaten in the WSB: definitely an evening of boxing to savour.
Ukraine Otamans vs. Argentina Condors
Last season’s runners up, the Ukraine Otamans will want to take full advantage of this home fixture against an Argentina side that has struggled so far this season. The trip from Buenos Aires to Kiev also represents the largest in the group, and the Otamans will want to capitalise on any jet-lag that the Condors could suffer from. Nonetheless they have also chosen to hand debuts to two new boxers, Flyweight Kazat Usenaliev and Super Heavyweight Iegor Plevako whilst Denys Lazarev and Oleksandr Ganzulia both retain their places in the starting line-up following their Week 1 wins against the USA Knockouts.
The Condors are also starting with two new boxers in Luis Veron and Leandro Luna at Welterweight and Super Heavyweight respectively, but will be looking to veteran Luis Bravo who goes into his 2nd WSB season with a record of 2-1, to try to give the Condors a boost. Can the Otamans take advantage of the difficult group match between Germany and Italy to top the table or will the traveling Condors cause an upset?
Algeria Desert Hawks vs. USA Knockouts
Algeria host their first home match of the Season against the USA Knockouts. The Desert Hawks have yet to win a bout this year following the Week 1 away thumping to Team Germany and the postponement of their scheduled Week 2 match against Italia Thunder. Despite this fact, the Algerians are fielding a team with just two wins between them in the WSB, both of which come from Light Heavyweight Nabil Kassel who will be a key man for the Algerian Franchise this weekend against Knockouts debutant Osmar Bravo from Nicaragua.
The USA team meanwhile are actually in a statistically worse situation since they are handing debuts to the entire team apart from Paul Koon III at Super Heavyweight who has only competed in the WSB once before (1-0). This will be an interesting one to watch, with both teams opting to give experience to their new team members. For one side, the tactic will work well but for the other it is doomed to fail. Who will prevail?
This weekend the World Series of Boxing (WSB) makes a historic first appearance in La Havana, Cuba as the enigmatic Russian Team travel to take on the Domadores de Cuba in their first ever home match.
Domadores de Cuba vs Russian Boxing Team
It’s two wins out of two for WSB new boys the Cuba Domadores, who currently lead the “Group of Death” ahead of defending champions Astana Arlans Kazakhstan. The Cubans are the only team to have won all their bouts after two matches but face stiff competition from the potential dark horse of the group, the Russian Boxing Team, who go into this bout in third place.
The Russians have the honour of being the first ever WSB team to visit the Cuban capital and they have chosen a mixture of experienced and inexperienced boxers in their starting line-up. The Cubans meanwhile will send one of their star boxers out for this symbolically important opening bout, in the guise of Light Flyweight Yosbany Veitia, who returned from the AIBA World Boxing Championships, Almaty 2013 in October with a bronze medal.
He is also the defending Pan-American silver medallist and won his WSB debut in week one against the very dangerous Joselito Velazquez of the Mexico Guerreros. The other big Cuban star (in more ways than one) is Erislandy Savon who makes an appearance at Heavyweight against Vitaly Kudukhov. On paper this is the clash of the match with the three season veteran Kudukhov (6-4) taking on the 2009 Pan-American Champion Savon, whose uncle was the great Felix Savon (a three time Olympic gold medallist and six time World Champion).
Russia will also be looking to the experience of Season II veteran Eduard Abzalimov, who makes his long-awaited return to the WSB this year. Though only 1-1 in the WSB, Abzalimov is the 2010 European Champion and the 2009 World silver medallist; this shows that the Russians are taking the match seriously enough following their home defeat in Week 2 at the hands of the Arlans. But are they packing enough heat to rebound against the Domadores or will the Cubans be able to sustain their unbeaten run?
Hussars Poland vs. Azerbaijan Baku Fires
It’s crunch time for the Hussars who enter this match without having won a single bout this season and thus find themselves pinned to the bottom of the table. In a group of impossible fixtures this is one of the more winnable ones for the group underdogs and they will need to at least get some bout wins on the board to boost the team’s confidence. Despite losing in the opening week against defending Champions Astana Arlans, the Fires on the other hand are in a positive mood after a 5-0 thrashing of the Mexico Guerreros at home. This is an important match for the Azeri team as it offers the chance to put some real distance between themselves and the bottom two teams in the table, potentially facilitating their trip through to the playoffs. Poland’s key man will be Mateusz Malujda who has a WSB record of 2-2 and was recruited from the pro-ranks last season where he had a 4-3 record.
The 31 year old journeyman will be pivotal in a Hussars team that is otherwise made up of WSB debutants, as the Polish look to develop their emerging talent. Malujda will himself be facing a WSB first timer in Denis Latypov. If Poland were to win just one bout, on paper this would be the most likely as elsewhere the Azeris are bringing serious firepower (pun intended) in the shape of Middleweight Jaba Khositashvili, (the 2011 European bronze medallist with a 6-1 WSB record) and more importantly Bantamweight Gairbek Germakhanov (the 2012 WSB Individual Champion with a record of 10-2 in the WSB).
Germakhanov, who was the number one ranked WSB Bantamweight in Season II, will be looking to take advantage of Poland’s new kid on the block, 19 year old Marek Pietruczuk, to get his season underway and extend his already solid personal record. Can the Hussars get some bouts on the scoreboard to kick start their season or will they get burned by the Fires? Find out tonight!
Astana Arlans Kazakhstan vs. The Mexico Guerreros
The Guerreros have had a disastrous start to their Season IV Campaign. Last season’s semi-finalists looked capable of beating anyone but so far this year they have also failed to win a single bout. Things won’t get any easier for them this week as they travel to face the defending Champions the Astana Arlans. The Alpha Wolves meanwhile will want to defend their territory from the emerging Cuba Domadores team and return to the head of the pack this weekend.
The Guerreros can expect no mercy from the champions as the position at the top of the group may well come down to the number of bouts won if things continue to progress at this rate. As if this point needed any further emphasis, the Arlans are deploying their equivalent of the nuclear option in the form of the WSB’s most successful boxer ever, Ukrainian Sergiy Derevyanchenko at Middleweight.
Derevyanchenko has suffered only a single loss in the WSB across four seasons and twenty bouts. He wins by TKO in 25% of his bouts and was the number one ranked Middleweight in Seasons I and II. He has won the title with two different teams (Italia Thunder and Astana Arlans) whilst also winning the WSB Individual Championships on both occasions that they were held.
His opponent Diego Moreno Amador is therefore going to quite probably have the most difficult WSB debut in history. Indeed the Mexican strategy for this bout is difficult to follow, as despite the quality of their opponents, they are handing debuts to all but one boxer (Albanian Christian Demaj) and they enter the ring with exactly zero wins in the WSB between them. Compare that to the 23 wins accumulated by the Arlans team (19 of which come from Derevyanchenko) and you can see where there may be a collective experience gap.
That said, the Arlans are also handing debuts to Light Flyweight Mardan Berikayev and Light Welterweight Zhanibek Azhibay which, excluding the home advantage, should make these quite competitive bouts. New boy Vasilii Levit retains his place at Heavyweight after his shock win on his debut match against WSB veteran Abdulkadir Abdullayev of the Baku Fires in Week 1. This is going to be another rough weekend for the struggling Guerreros who urgently need to get some wins on the board.
