By Jason Kim: Friday’s fight card at the Sporthalle in Hamburg, Germany got a little weaker today with the news that unbeaten heavyweight contender Denis Boytsov (31-0, 25 KO’s) has pulled out of his scheduled fight against Russian heavyweight Konstantin Airich (23-7-2, 17 KO’s) due to a sinus infection. The fight card will still go ahead but there are few interesting fights on the card to really appeal now.

Here’s what’s left:

Rakhim Chakhkiev vs. Epifanio Mendoza
Ismail Oezen vs. Fiodar Pugachou
Ina Menzer vs. Loli Munoz
Vitali Tajbert vs. TBA
Sebastian Real vs. Yavuz Keles
Maria Lindberg vs. Jennifer Retzke
Samir Said vs. Milan Ruso
Samariddin Holboev vs. TBA

The Chakhkiev-Mendoza is perhaps the only real interesting fight on the card as far as I can tell, but it’s not even a competitive match-up. Mendoza (34-14-1, 30 KO’s) is little more than a journeyman and has lost five out of his last nine bouts. He’s way out of his class here and has obviously been brought in just to give Chakhkiev a minor test. He’s not going to be competitive in this fight other than throwing an occasional bomb and hoping for the best.

Chakhkiev (14-0, 11 KO’s) is a former 2008 heavyweight Olympic gold medalist from Russia and putting him in with someone as out-gunned as Mendoza is hardly a fair fight. Chakhkiev’s promoters need to start putting him in with better opposition than this if they want to get him a title shot before he reaches his mid-thirties. He’s 29 now and he’s still being matched up with the likes of Zack Page. Being that he has all that Olympic experience as well as a long amateur background you’d think that he’d be pushed up a lot faster than he is.

The WBO cruiserweight champion is the 27-year-old Marco Huck, and he’s been champion for three years since he was 24. Huck didn’t have much of any amateur background. The difference here is his promoters were willing to to put him in with the best opposition early on in his career and he’s responded well. Chakhkiev’s promoters needs to start pushing him up soon because he’s wasting his best years fighting journeyman.