A big night of boxing is lined up for Saturday May 4 at the Multiversum arena in Vienna-suburb Schwechat, featuring two of Austria’s most popular fighters, Gogi Knezevic and Timy Shala, in World Boxing Federation Intercontinental title fights.
Knezevic (24-4-1, 12 KOs) will be taking on rugged and experienced Hungarian Jozsef Matolcsi (32-19-1, 20 KOs) for the vacant Middleweight championship, while the undefeated Shala (15-0, 6 KOs) will contest the vacant Light Heavyweight crown against Tomas Adamek (19-7-1, 7 KOs) from the Czech Republic.
Appropriately nicknamed “Lionheart”, former Austrian national champion Knezevic is getting his second shot at the title, as he unexpectedly lost his first opportunity in 2010 when German underdog Viktor Dick upset the applecart in Vienna.
Since then Knezevic (33) has won six of seven fights, with the loss being in a regional title fight to up-and-comer Goekalp Oezekler, and he will undoubtedly be looking to put on a show in front of what will be a partisan hometown-crowd.
Former WBF World title-challenger Jozsef Matolcsi has shared a ring with lots of big names, fought for and won a slew of championships, and one would be hard pressed to find many Europeans with more experience at top level than the 37-year-old from Budapest.
While it could easily be argued that his best days are behind him, it was only last July that Matolcsi gave Frenchman Denis Saioni all he could handle before losing on points in a European title fight, and coming off a victory in his latest outing he will be confident that he has a good chance to bring home the belt.
In the evenings co-feature, Timy “The Bomber” Shala (27) faces his pro careers stiffest test in another true veteran, Tomas Adamek. While Shala’s biggest night was winning the Austrian title last summer, Adamek (32) has, besides lifting the Czech International title, fought for the EU championship three times, and challenged for various regional belts.
In January 2012 Adamek proved his worth when he took WBF International Champion Denis Simcic the full ten rounds, and at times gave as good as he got before coming up short on the scorecards. Having also fought excellent fighters such as Antonio Brancalion, Vyacheslav Uzelkov and Pawel Glazewski, he will not be intimidated by the prospect of going to war with Shala in his backyard.
The Knezevic vs. Matolcsi and Shala vs. Adamek World Boxing Federation Intercontinental title fights on May 4 at the Multiversum in Schwechat, Austria will be promoted by Box-Team Vienna. On the card will also be a female European title clash between Eva Voraberger and Polina Pencheva.
www.worldboxingfederation.net