BoxRec

Champion: Kubrat Pulev
Challenger: Robert Helenius

1. Denis Boytsov
2. David Price
3. Tyson Fury
4. Alexander Dimitrenko
5. Richard Towers


Pulev has to fight the winner of Adamek vs Cunningham for the IBF mandatory position. I would imagine he will vacate the European title, rather than have to fight Helenius as well.

Boytsov and Fury are meant to be fighting in some sort of world title eliminator early next year, so they will likely choose that over a European title shot.

That leaves Price as next in line, so how likely is Price vs Helenius for the European title early next year?

Its a fight i would like to see, if Price is going on to world level then he needs to beat the likes of Wach and helenius. He really needs to fight these 'world level' gatekeepers.

Are they the official rankings? How is Towers 5 (7)?

JLP wrote:Are they the official rankings? How is Towers 5 (7)?

Yes, they are the official rankings.

Towers is ranked in 5th position mostly because he is the EU champion.

http://www.boxebu.com/eburatings1pag.pdf

Towers in 5th is ridiculous.

Price being above Fury is pretty crazy too.

lillywhite14 wrote:Towers in 5th is ridiculous.

Price being above Fury is pretty crazy too.

The thing is being the EU champ and defending it goes a long way in those rankings because you are gonna be defending against guys who are in the EBU ratings or just outside and if you do that then your ranking does go up real quick. Likewise with Price he has KOd McDermott, Sexton and Harrison back to back and those 3 guys are all top 20 in the latest EBU ratings. Fury has been bringing in guys from outside of Europe. Rogan is the only European guy he has faced in recent times and he wasn't in the EBU ratings because he hadn't fought in donkeys years.

Pulev is likely to be fighting Wladimir K in 2013 I reckon so the belt is going to become vacant should he win the IBF elimination tournament. Price will be looking to secure the Lonsdale for keep once he gets past Matt Skelton so will be fighting February at the earliest so I reckon it could April/May at the earliest before he will get a crack at tilt for the Europan. Helenius could do with a couple of tune up fights because he has been out for a ages with that shoulder since getting gift wrapped that decision against Derek Chisora early last year. So I do think it will happen not just yet.

Where's Chisora? It's his belt.

Karl Jade wrote:Where's Chisora? It's his belt.

It should have been his belt because that was one of the worse decisions of the year along with Brandon Rios being gifted a majority decision against Richard Abril which also stank the the joint out. As for Chisora he has probably finished his 45 day sitting out period after getting stopped by David Haye in their Luxembourg fight and would need to be relicenced by the Board after his antics in Germany with the Brothers K and Haye.

not yet

Helinius is on borrowed time