At the half-way point in the 2010-2011 World Series of Boxing season, Paris United remain at the top of the European conference after a 4-1 home win against second-placed Milano Thunder on Friday night. Milan’s loss was compounded by the Astana Arlans taking over as the best second-placed team after a 5-0 home win over the Incheon Red Wings on Saturday night. The top team in each conference, plus the best second-placed team go through to the play-offs in April.
Backed by some 2000 fans, unbeaten Irishman John Joseph Nevin opened proceedings for the home team at the Halle Carpentier against Ukrainian Vitaliy Volkov. Nevin started aggressively and built up a lead to win by unanimous decision and top the individual standings at bantamweight, ahead of team-mate Nordine Oubaali.
Ludovic Groguhe also climbed to the top of the individual standings after making short work of his light heavyweight contest against 20-year-old Entoni Juric. Two rounds were enough for the Croatian as Groguhe won by technical knock-out. “This was important to score 4 points at least,” said Brahim Asloum after the fight. “Now we are on top of the Conference, and this smells good for the future”.
With an easy 4-1 victory over the Miami Gallos Thursday night, the Los Angeles Matadors stayed top of the American conference standings after the first half of the season.With 1984 Olympian Evander “The Real Deal” Holyfield sitting ringside at the Nokia Theatre in downtown Los Angeles, the Matadors once again dominated the competition, with the team’s lone blemish coming by way of walkover when they were unable to field a boxer at light heavyweight due to injury.
“The Matadors are my home team,” exclaimed Holyfield. “I love these guys and they fight with a lot of heart.”
“These guys fight a lot faster than the pros. Most U.S. fighters fight a slower style when they fight internationally so they get beat. Now that the U.S. has the World Series of Boxing, I’m sure we’ll win a lot of medals because this is giving us an opportunity to fight international opponents.”
Russell Lamour provided a rude welcoming to WSB newcomer John Joe Joyce from Ireland in the middleweight division. Joyce arrived in the States earlier in the week and was given a matchup with one of the WSB’s hottest boxers as Lamour dominated Joyce throughout and improved to 3-0 on the year, putting him third in the individual standings.
“Getting to 3-0 feels good,” said Lamour after the fight. “Each win makes me feel closer to getting to the Olympics. That’s the goal and we’re going to get there.”
The the Mexico City Guerreros once again overwhelmed the Memphis Force with a 5-0 win in Southaven on Saturday night. The Guerreros, behind three WSB newcomers, earned their first road victory of the season to move to a respectable 3-3 on the year and back into second place behind the front-running Los Angeles Matadors.
Josip Duric of the Guerreros defeated Chris Jones of the Force in his WSB debut at middleweight, dropping Jones to 0-3 on the season. After losing the first round to Jones and settling in to the new format of the WSB, Duric wouldn’t lose another round the rest of the way and scored a unanimous decision over Jones, 49-45, 49-45, 49-45. A big 10-8 decision among among all three judges in the fourth round proved to be the deciding factor.
Sweden’s Kenney Katende, who made his debut for the Guerreros as the only representative from Scandinavia in the WSB, opened with a win against Hungary’s Imre Szello. The Swedish Olympian Katende got the better of the Hungarian Olympian Szello in a unanimous decision, 48-47, 48-47, 49-46.
Jose Payares from Venezuela won out for the Guerreros in the battle of heavyweights. Payares, a 2008 Olympian, handed Cam Thompson a decisive unanimous decision loss by winning every round on all three judge’s score cards, 50-45, 50-45, 48-47.
Alisher Mahmudov got things off to a bad start for the Moscow Kremlin Bears in Istanbul on Friday night, picking up three warnings and hence a disqualification in the bantamweight bout. A knock-out for the home team’s Onur Sipal put the Istanbulls ahead in the middleweight contest and a walkover for the home team in the heavyweight bout handed them a 3-2 victory.
The Baku Fires remain overall WSB leaders after a 3-2 victory over the Beijing Dragons on Saturday night. A win for Mongolia’s Tugstsogt Nyambayar on his debut opened the scoring for Baku and the two Azeri boxers in action each won their bouts to secure the victory, with Soltan Migitinov enjoying his second consecutive technical knock-out.
Newcomer Slam Kanat impressed for the Astana Arlans in the middleweight bout at home to the Incheon Red Wings on Saturday night. The naturalized Kazakh knocked out Andranik Hakobyan in the first round. Wins on points for the rest of the team produced a clean sweep of 5-0 for the Arlans and moved them up to the position of best second-placed team overall and therefore in position to qualify for the team championships.
WSB action resumes with match weekend seven from January 27.
