By Marco Bratusch

Mediaglobal boxing promotion won today EBU bid earning the rights to stage the fight between European bantamweight titlist Karim Guerfi (25-3, 7 KOs) against experienced official challenger Stephane Jamoye (31-7, 16 KOs), from Belgium. The winning offer was 7,500 Euros, topping a Promotion GMG bid of 6,000 Euros. The fight is expected to take place on June 17th in Paris, per Mediaglobal.

It must be clarified that a previous purse bid had been held for the same title last February, with JMM Management winning that bid with a sizeable offer. Nevertheless, when the already scheduled fight had to be postponed because of some back treatments required by Jamoye, the promoter could not provide alternative dates in the near months, eventually forcing EBU to call for a new bid.

In other news, due to the fact that Christophe Rebrassé is not considered to be ready to fight in May and that European Union (EU) titlist Hakim Zoulikha (24-8, 10 KOs) was still looking for an opponent to face in his voluntary defense scheduled May 18th in Paris, Italian citizen, Ukrainian-born puncher Serhiy Demchenko (17-11-1, 12 KOs) will finally been pitted against Zoulikha instead of Rebrassé, meaning that he will also step back up to his previous weight class at light heavyweight instead of super middleweight where he was recently competing.

The likely fan-friendly Zoulikha vs. Demchenko bout along with another, now vacant, European Union title between lightweight prospects Marvin Petit (20-1-1, 10 KOs) and Jerobe Santana (15-0, 5 KOs) will represent the chief and solid support for a Canal Plus televised card at Cirque D’Hiver in Paris, promoted by Malamine Koné’s MK Event on Thursday, May 18th.

As previously reported, the feature bout of the evening will be the eliminator between French southpaw Cedric Vitu (45-2, 18 KOs) and former Italian titleholder Marcello Matano (17-2, 5 KOs), valid for the IBF #1 mandatory spot to recently crowned champion Jarrett Hurd. The officials have already been set by the IBF, with British referee Steve Gray to be the third man on the ring and judges Vincent Dupas, Francesco Rega and Pawel Kardyni at ringside. In regard to this match, EBU confirms that the European title held by Cedric Vitu will not be at stake.