Ovill McKenzie withdraws from bout vs. Marco Huck, citing illness

By Per-Ake Persson

British cruiser Ovill McKenzie have - as reported elsewhere - pulled out of Saturday´s fight in Frankfurt / Main against IBO king Marco Huck. That marks the second in 2016 that McKenzie pulls out of an important fight. He was all set to take on Dmytro Kucher for the vacant EBU title June 10 when he sometime in May pulled out with illness. McKenzie last fought in October 2015. For those who check boxrec.com McKenzie is listed as on for a British title fight on the undercard to Klitschko vs Fury October 29.

Marco Huck and Ovill McKenzie head to head

As for Huck Promotions there was apparently a last minute substitute available in Enad Licina, who was to have been featured in the second mainevent on the Frankfurt bill. Licina made it clear to boxwelt.com that he was ready to step in - if the money was right.

However, Marco and his brother Kenan, who runs the company decided to cancel the whole show.

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French promoter MK Event stage a fight for the vacant EBU welterweight title December 9 in Paris between Paulie Malignaggi and Ahmed El Mousaoui announces the EBU on its website. Malignaggi's European career saw him win the EU title last year.

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Sauerland Promotion announced that Erik Skoglund would fight Timmy Shala October 28 in Nykoping (Sweden) and the deal was indeed done except for one thing: the special permission from the Martial Arts Delegation for fights longer than 12 minutes. Today I was notified that the application for 12x3 had been turned down as it came in too late. The law - the Martial Arts Law - calls for applications to be made 60 days before fight date and apparently Sauerland was too late. There have been no comment from promoter Nisse Sauerland on how to handle this.

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Maeki Boxing, headed by Pekka Maeki, won purse bids in Rome for EBU lightweight champ Edis Tatli's mandatory defence against Italian Manuel Lancia (14-1-1). Maeki bid 105 000 Euro and will stage the fight in Finland with date and site to be announced. Sauerland came in second with a bid for 63 005 Euro and Italian Buccioni Boxing Team bid 40 080 Euro.

Tatli is now 28 -1 and have held the EBU title since April of 2015.

Maeki Boxing will also stage Mariano Hilario's (16-4) defence of the EU supermiddleweight title against Niklas Rasanen (13-0).

Per-Åke Persson