European Boxing Updates

By Marco Bratusch

Former European junior welterweight champion Anthony Yigit (21-0-1, 7 KOs), a young, skilled southpaw from Sweden, officially relinquished his continental belt last week as he is already scheduled to take on hard-hitting Ivan “Beast” Barancyk (18-0, 11 KOs) on October 27 in New Orleans for the vacant IBF belt, a bout which also happens to be a quarter-final for World Boxing Super Series tournament’s second season in the 140-pound division. The vacant European belt will be disputed between Italian Andrea Scarpa (23-4, 10 KOs) and Joe Hughes (16-3-1, 7 KOs), with the purse bid deadline set for October 10 at noon by the EBU. Hughes is a solid fighter with a good level of opposition in domestic fights while Scarpa, who also had his biggest fights in the UK in 2016 where he beat John Wayne Hibbert in an eye-catching battle, followed it up with lackluster performance in front of Ohara Davies who utterly dominated the bout.

The same date of October 10 has been set by the EBU even for the European cruiserweight fight between the champion Yves Ngabu (19-0, 14 KOs) with mandatory challenger Ryad Merhy (25-1, 21 KOs), from Belgium by way of Ivory Coast, who is known especially for the very competitive fight he put on against Arsen Goulamirian until he got stopped in the eleventh round for a secondary WBA belt. Ngabu will be at the second defense of his belt going into this punchers contest. The previous official challenger for Ngabu’s belt, Alexandru Jur, suffered a first round KO last Saturday in Russia by the heavy hands of Dmitry Kudryashov and as a result he lost his position.

Last week in Rome, Italy, Gallego Prada Promociones offered 26,000 Euro as the only bidder, securing the rights of staging the vacant European junior lightweight title at stake for Juli Giner (23-3-1, 8 KOs), a former champion, and Frenchman Samir Ziani (28-3-1, 5 KOs). It was reported around the boxing landscape that the boxers’ promoters finally came to terms skipping the bid, but actually there was a proper offer submitted by Giner’s handlers to earn such right regarding this match. The Catalunian venture intends to put on the show in November in Spain, of course, which looks to a be classic puncher versus boxer kind of match.