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It was nothing short of a real
life Rocky Story on Friday night
in Cairo, Egypt, when late
substitute Lasha Gurguliani
stepped in to face local hero
Andreas Valavanis for the vacant
World Boxing Federation (WBF)
World Super Welterweight title.
A genuine road-warrior.
Gurguliani (28) has continuously
taken short notice assignments
all over the world, fighting in
Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Latvia,
Belgium, Italy, Hungary, Germany
and Russia with mixed results,
besides his native Georgia.
Despite beating Nuhu Lawal
(25-3) in Germany and Arif
Magomedov (18-2) in Russia in
two of his previous three
outings, Gurguliani travelled to
Egypt as the underdog, a natural
consequence of accepting the
fight not much more than a week
ago.
But the visitor proved his
actual class by thoroughly
dominating Valavanis, scoring
six knock-downs along the way to
secure a unanimous decision
despite being knocked down once
himself, and having two points
deducted for fouls. Valavanis
had one point deducted for a
foul.
Judge Eddie Marshal from South
Africa scored the fight 116-103,
while judges Adesanya Olusegun
Ayodele from Nigeria and
Emmanuel Mlundwa from Tanzania
had it much too close at 110-107
and 110-109 respectively.
The new WBF World Champion
improved his professional record
to 18-6 (6), while former WBF
All Africa, International and
Intercontinental titlist
Valavanis drops to 13-2 (11).
Still only twenty-seven years
old, the Egyptian showed
tremendous courage to last the
distance and has time to improve
and come again.
Promoter of the fight was
Richard Nwoba and Louaa Boxing
Promotions.
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