POLES APART- SZYMANSKI AND PIATKOWSKA STICK TO THEIR TASK

By Malte Muller-Michaelis

Two new Polish WBC Champions were crowned Saturday night in front of 12,000 fans at the ERGO Arena in Gdansk when Patryk Szymanski won the vacant WBC Youth World Superwelterweight title and Ewa Piatkowska claimed the vacant WBC Women’s World Superwelterweight Championship.

Szymanski had to dig very deep to secure a split decision win against tough Argentinian Jose Antonio Villalobos in an all-action Youth Championship fight. Villalobos got off to a good start outworking his opponent in the first two rounds but Szymanski came back strong and inflicted a knockdown in round three.

The Argentinian suffered a cut over the right eye but never backed down, landing some hard shots in the middle rounds. Both contenders looked tired half way through the fight, but finished strong with the last two rounds seeing great back-and-forth action, bringing the crowd to their feet. Szymanski also got cut over his left eye in the ninth round.

After ten exciting rounds judge Andreas Stenberg (Sweden) saw it 96-94 for Szymanski, Przemyslaw Moszumanski (Poland) had it 95-94 for Szymanski and Olena Pobyvailo saw it 95-94 for Villalobos. All three scores can be justified because there were many close rounds.

In the co-feature of the night, Ewa Piatkowska beat Aleksandra Magdziak Lopes by unanimous decision to win the vacant WBC Women’s World Superwelterweight Championship.

The first rounds were very close with both fighters having their moments. Piatkowska was the aggressor but Magdziak Lopes won some of the early rounds with good movement and excellent counterpunching. However, Piatkowska took control in the middle rounds and produced a flash knockdown in round six, which basically decided the fight. From that moment on, the local hero was in charge and secured a clear win (96-93, 97-93 and 96-93).

Piatkowska will face Mikaela Lauren next. Mikaela vacated the Superwelterweight title to move down to Welterweight. After losing by close decision to Klara Svensson last week in an interim World Championship bout, Lauren will return to Superwelter to challenge the newly crowned Champion from Poland.

The show was promoted by Knockout Promotions (Andrzej Wasilewski and Piotr Werner) in association with Babilon Promotions (Tomas Babilonski). It was an excellent event with great atmosphere in front of an enthusiastic crowd. Both title fights were featured on the international live broadcast.