By Per Aake Persson:
Hennessy Sports won the purse offers today for EBU 140 lb champ Junior Witter´s defence against Ukrainian Andreas Kotelnik with an offer for 85 000 EUR. Universum bid 67 500 EUR.
Ex-WBC 168 lb champ Cristian Sanavia will as indicated yesterday go ahead with his already signed showdown against German Danilo Haussler April 23 in Dortmund. At stake is the vacant WBA I/C title. As for who will fight Vitaly Tsypko for the vacant EBU 168 lb title on this date is still not certain but Irishman Brian Magee is likely.
EBU jr middle champ Sergey Dzindziruk defends against Frenchman Jimmy Colas April 16 in Magdeburg in a voluntary defence. Dzindziruk´s mandatory defence against Italian Michele Piccirillo will go ahead June 18 in Pula (Croatia) after a last minute agreement between OPI 2000 and Universum.
The EBF, the European Boxing Federation, was created Dec 29, 2004, with seat in Vienna and headed by Werner Tomanek, an attorney based in Vienna. Vice-President is Peter Popischal, who also heads Box-Team Vienna, who over the years have promoted shows in Austria and elsewhere. EBF aims to cover all 44 countries in Europe and will also involve kick- and Thaiboxing. A conflict with the EBU, European Boxing Union, is of course already there as the EBU claims a monopoly to the word "Europe" and this far they´ve been powerful enough to take on and stop all comers. The EBF have, it appears, already established connections with other breakout organisations such as the German GBA.