By Eric Thomas: The unification bout scheduled for this Saturday night between WBO light heavyweight champion Jurgen Brahmer (36-2, 29 KO’s) and World Boxing Association (WBA) light heavyweight champ Beibut Shumenov (10-6 KO’s), has been called off after the 32-year-old Brahmer pulled out of the fight due to a bad gastrointestinal illness he suddenly developed. According to news from fightnews, Brahmer developed a bad case of diarrhea, nausea, vomiting as well as a bad headache.

It looks as if Brahmer was losing fluid from both ends of his body. Given that the fight was supposed to be taking place on Saturday, Brahmer’s camp decided to cancel the fight rather than take the risk of putting their man out there in less than 100% condition for the fight. Brahmer and his management need to take a look at what Brahmer was eating that may have led to this illness. The fight was supposed to have taken place in Shymkent, Kazakhstan. But now Shumenov is going to have to look at an alternative bout unless he wants to wait around and try to salvage the Brahmer fight at a later date.

German boxing has had bad luck lately. Heavyweight Alexander Dimitrenko recently was unable to fight Albert Sosnowkski recently after feinting in the dressing room before the fight. And now we have Brahmer suddenly getting violently ill with a bad case of diarrhea, vomiting and stomach cramps.

Brahmer and Shumenov are decent light heavyweights but not considered to be the very best fighters in the division. The top guys in the division right now are WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal, Bernard Hopkins and Chad Dawson. A fighter that could be quickly up there among those guys is Britain’s Nathan Cleverly. He could wind up being the best of the bunch at some point.