(Photo Credit: Sebastian Heger) By Scott Gilfoid: WBA “regular” light heavyweight champion Juergen Braehmer (47-2, 35 KOs) will be making a voluntary defense of his title in two months from now against #9 WBA Thomas Oosthuizen (25-0-1, 14 KOs) on March 12 at the Jahnsportforum in Neubrandenburg, Germany.
The 37-year-old Braehmer isn’t the WBA’s top champion. He’s a junior champion or paper champion in the minds of some boxing fans. Unfortunately, Braehmer has been matched like a paper champions since he won the vacant WBA World 175lb title in December 2013 in beating Marcus Oliveira by a 12 round unanimous decision.
Braehmer has since then defended his WBA title five times against this weak group of contenders: Konni Konrad, Robin Krasniqi, Pawel Glazewski, Roberto Feliciano Bolonti and Enzo Maccarinelli. Out of that group, Krasniqi surprisingly was a mandatory, which is hard to understand because he had done little to become a mandatory. The World Boxing Association’s rankings are very hard to understand and more than a little disappointing.
The Braehmer vs. Oosthuizen fight was previously scheduled for 2016, but it couldn’t happen because of an injury that Brahmer suffered in training for the fight. Now it’s finally about to happen and one can only hope that Braehmer doesn’t come up lame again with some new injury.
The good news is that once Braehmer beats the 27-year-old South African southpaw Oosthuizen, then he’ll be due to face his #1 WBA mandatory challenger Felix Valera. The bad news is that Valera is only a little better than the guys that Braehmer has been feasting on since he won the WBA title. The WBA’s ranking of Valera at No.1 makes about as much sense as their previous ranking of Krasniqi at No.1. It’s just senseless.
The WBA should have Artur Beterbiev #1, Jean Pascal #2, Sullivan Barrera #3, Andrzej Fonfara No.4, Marcus Brown No.5, Bernard Hopkins #6, Edwin Rodriguez #7, Alexander Brand #8, Andre Ward No.9, and Eleider Alvarez #10. I don’t rate Oosthuizen as a top 10 contender. He’s a mediocre fighter with controversial draws against Brandon Gonzalez and Chilemba. I had Oosthuizen losing both of those fights, and I think he was extremely fortunate to be given draws.
“I am delighted that my injury is completely healed and we now can do the bout,” said Braehmer. “His height doesn’t bother me. I have always done well against taller opponents. Enzo Maccarinelli was a similar size and I stopped him inside the distance. Regardless of his size, whether by KO or points – I will be sending the South African home empty-handed.”
With the kind of fighters that Braehmer has been facing as the WBA champion, I think he might be able to hold onto his WBA title for another three more years until he’s 40. If the WBA is going to be ranking weak contenders at the No.1 spot with their strange rankings, it’s going to make it easy for Braehmer to hold onto his title. He’s taking REALLY easy fights for his voluntary defenses, and then the WBA is ranking guys that are more fringe level contenders than top five as their No.1 guys. I’m sorry, but I think Krasniqi is a terrible fighter, and Valera isn’t much better.
“It is great news that the fight is going ahead. Let’s hope Braehmer doesn’t come up with another excuse not to fight me! I’m definitely going to cash in on my skill, speed, youth, power and agility to win the fight. I’ll put him away for sure. You’ll hear nothing from the scorecards,” Oosthuizen said.
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