It was a big night for the World Boxing Federation at a sold-out Sportpark Arena in Ljubljana, Slovenia on Friday, Feb. 18, with two championship bouts that more than lived up to what they promised beforehand.
In a female world title bout, unbeaten Christina Hammer, now 9-0 (7), captured the vacant WBF middleweight belt (to add to the WBO belt she already holds but not defended in this fight) by impressively overpowering Hungary’s Diana Kiss and in the process solidify her boxrec # 1 world rating.
Kiss came with solid credentials in this clash of 20-year-olds, but Hammer, from Dortmund, Germany and managed by SES Boxing who staged this show, left no doubt why she is the foremost female middleweight on the planet at the moment. When Christina finally put her foot on the gas in round seven, there immediately was a huge gap in class visible and she severely punished Kiss to the extend that the girl from Budapest declined to come out for round eight.
“Had she kept on taking these kind of punches, I would have become perplexed! The WBF belt is beautiful and I’m happy to wear it now,” said Christina after the fight.
In the second WBF fight of the night, International lightheavyweight champion Denis Simcic successfully defended his title for the third time with a unanimous decision over stubborn Georgian challenger Sandro Siproshvili.
Although Siproshvili, who lives in Prague, was probably Denis’ toughest opponent to date, the Slovenian born in Germany lived up to the challenge in a great way. Simcic was faster all the way through, both mentally and with hands and feet and from time to time actually landed power shots on the incoming challenger’s iron jaw.
Apart from a nose bleed early in the fight and a six round in which the defending champion needed a rest, Simcic came through with flying colours in what must be a career-best performance. He is now 26-1 (14) and his manager Ulf Steinforth may well look for a WBF world title shot later this year.
