By Mark Hepplestall: In what was a busy week for European boxing which saw such bouts as Heavyweight Contender Robert Helenius against fringe contender and former WBC title holder Samuel Peter, WBC cruiserweight champion Krzysztof Wlodarczyk defended against Francisco Palacios, WBA interim middleweight champion Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam fought Giovanni Lorenzo, EBU lightweight champion John Murray fought Spanish challenger Karim El Ouazghari, and lastly WBO cruiserweight champion Marco Huck fought Ran Nakash.

Firstly Marco Huck fought and defeated Ran Nakash to a unanimous decision on Saturday night at the Gerry Weber Stadium, Halle, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany, after 12 rounds the final judges’ scores were a 118-110, 118-110, and 116-112. Not the most explosive of fights, the taller Marco Huck dominated the majority of the 12 rounds with his jab and powerful shots. Ran Nakash tried to keep the pressure up for 12 rounds but truly never troubled Huck at any time in the
fight.

Heavyweight contender Robert Helenius defeated former WBC heavyweight champion Samuel Peter by knock out in the 9th round. A heavy Peter weighed in at 259lbs before the fight and was sluggish throughout the fight, Helenius came through early pressure to dominate the fight with his long powerful jab until Peter got knocked down from a left to the temple, after Peter got up he walked straight into a left hook which connected with the chin perfectly knocked the once granite chinned Peter unconscious. Helenius should maybe go after Alexander Dimitrenko and his EBU title; the winner would be highly likely guaranteed to get a world title shot. Samuel Peter has nowhere left to go unfortunately except retirement.

WBC cruiserweight title, champion Krzysztof Wlodarczyk defended his WBC cruiserweight title against Francisco Palacios to a split decision victory, on Saturday night at the Hala Luczinczka, ul. Torunska 59, Bydgoszcz, Poland. The final judge’s scores were 118-112, 116-113 for Wlodarczyk, and 115-113 for Palacios. Wlodarczyk is looking for bigger matches including unification bouts in the following year against Marco Huck and the other Cruiserweight champions.

WBA interim middleweight champion Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam defeated contender Giovanni Lorenzo by a 12 round unanimous decision on Saturday night at the La Palestre, Le Cannet, Alpes-Maritimes, France. The final judges’ scores were 119-110, 116-110 and 119-109, which were surprisingly wide considering N’Dam N’Jikam was knocked down in the 5th round. The slick moving N’Dam N’Jikam landed multiple jabs at a time and showed great counter punching skills. Gennady Golovkin is the WBA world title holder and should be made to fight N’Dam N’Jikam very soon.

Lastly EBU lightweight champion John Murray defeated Spanish challenger Karim El Ouazghari by unanimous decision. This was a hard fight for Murray, as he actually faced a powerful and determined opponent who most defiantly turned up to win, the fight was close for the first 6 rounds but Murray won the majority of the rounds in the second half of the fight due to his better body shots and higher work rate. Murray even scored a knockdown in the 11th and Ouazghari was deducted a point for an attempted head-butt. In the 12th Murray lost a point for throwing a rabbit punch in the 12th. The final judges’ scores were 116-110, 117-111 and 115-112. Next maybe a possible fight against Gavin Rees or Kevin Mitchell, also do not rule out a match up against Alex Arthur.