By Erik Schmidt: This July 17th fight card is loaded with excellent fights, starting with World Boxing Organization (WBO light heavyweight champion Jürgen Brahmer (36-2, 29 KO’s) defending his title against Spanish challenger Alejandro Lakatos (31-5-2, 23 KO’s) in a scheduled 12 round bout at the Sport and congress Center, in Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommem, Germany.

Also on the card is cruiserweight contender Alexander Alexeev (19-1, 17 KO’s) taking on unbeaten Russian knockout artist Denis Lebedev (25-0, 15 KO’s). Rounding out the undercard will be WIBF Women’s International Boxing Federation flyweight, WBA/WBO female flyweight champion Susi Kentikian (27-0, 16 KO’s) defending her titles against unbeaten French challenger Arly Mucino (10-0-1, 6 KO’s) in a 10 round bout.

The southpaw Brahmer, 31, will be making his third defense of his WBO title, which he won back in August 2009 with a 11th round stoppage victory over Aleksy Kuziemski. Brahmer has beaten Dmitry Sukhotsky and Mariano Nicholas Plotinsky in his two title defenses. Both fighters aren’t well known, and neither is Lakotos. However, it should make for an interesting fight while it lasts. Brahmer is very slick, and is skillful at making his opponents miss and then making them pay for their misses. In Brahmer’s last fight against Plotinsky in April, Brahmer toyed with him for four rounds, letting Plotinsky hit him and stay in the fight until taking him out in the 5th round with some heavy shots.

Alexeev, 29, is ranked #2 WBO and #12 in the IBF cruiserweight division, and has rebounded well since being stopped in the 9th round a year ago against the hard hitting Argentinian Victor Emilio Ramirez in January 2009. Alexeev dominated that fight until running out of gas in the 9th round and getting stopped. Since then, Alexeev has defeated Max Alexander, Kendrick Releford and Daniel Ammann.

However, there’s still a big question mark that hangs over Alexeev’s head in terms of his conditioning, because none of his opponents have pushed him hard since his loss to Ramirez last year. In his first fight after that defeat against Alexander, you could see Alexeev getting really tired by the midpoint in the fight, and looking nervous. However, Alexeev’s last two opponents have gone down early, so it’s hard to know whether Alexeev has solved his conditioning problems or not. His opponent, the southpaw Lebedev, is much like Ramirez, only more powerful. Lebedev pressures his opponents and has very heavy hands. He beat up and essentially crushed former WBO cruiserweight champion Enzo Maccarinelli in a 3rd round stoppage last year in July 2009. In his last two fights, Lebedev has defeated Ali Ismailov and Ignacio Esparza, two good fighters, stopping both of them.
Alexeev has the better boxing skills compared to Lebedev, but he doesn’t have the same power nor does he have very good stamina, as we’ve already seen in his loss to Ramirez. I expect that Alexeev will give Lebedev problems in the first half of the fight, but will then start fading in the second half and will once again get stopped. Lebedev is ranked #1 WBO and #5 IBF.

Kentikian, 22, has looked sensational since capturing the WBA female flyweight title three years ago in 2007. She has since added the WIBF and WBO female flyweight titles to her growing collection. Kentikian, 5’1”, has mostly dominated her opposition with her fast hands and excellent combinations. However, she’s been having stamina problems late in her fights off and on, and she’s looked susceptible to being outworked. In her last fight, Kentikian struggled to beat Nadis Raoui by a 10 round split decision. Many people think that Kentikian should have lost that fight, including this writer. Never the less, Raoui and will be meeting the unbeaten Mucino next. This should be interesting because Mucino, from Mexico, has good power and is very dangerous. She’s knocked out six of her eleven opponents thus far.