By Stanley White: The December 2nd rematch between WBA World super middleweight champion Tyron Zeuge (21-0-1, 11 KOs) and 2 WBA Isaac Erkpo (32-3, 25 KOs) has been postponed due to an illness suffered by the 25-year-old Zeuge. The fight is expected to be rescheduled in March.
While the Zeuge-Ekpo fight will be postponed and rescheduled, the remainder of this Saturday’s card will still take place as scheduled. Heavyweight contender Otto Wallin will be fighting Gabriel Enguema in the main event instead of the Zeuge-Ekpo fight.
Zeuge and Ekpo were supposed to be fighting at the MBS Arena in Potsdam, Germany. This is a rematch that was ordered by the World Boxing Association after the 35-year-old Ekpo appealed to have a rematch following his close 5th round technical decision loss to Zeuge on March 25 in Potsdom, Germany.
Zeuge beat Ekpo by the scores 49-46, 48-47 and 49-47. The fight was stopped due to Zeuge suffering a bad cut over his right eye from a clash of heads earlier in the fight in round 3. The fight easily could have gone Ekpo’s ways, but the judges seemed to be oblivious to the huge shots that he was landing. They were largely scoring it round after round in favor of the home fighter Zeuge.
Ekpo is going to need to push hard for a knockout if he wants to get the win over Zeuge, because the rematch is going to be taking place in Germany. Ekpo is from Abuja, Nigeria.
After his win over Ekpo, Zeuge was allowed to take an optional defense against fringe contender Paul Smith, who he easily beat by a 12 round unanimous decision on June 17.
Despite being seen by many boxing fans as the weak link among the super middleweight champions, Zeuge has successfully defended his WBA title twice since winning it last year in beating Giovanni De Carolis by a 12th round knockout on November 5. Zeuge was given a rematch after the judges scored his first fight against De Carolis a 12 round draw last year in July.
The scoring for that fight was arguably VERY generous for Zeuge, who suffered a shoulder injury early in the contest, and he did little in the way of throwing punches for the last 9 rounds. Boxing News 24 had De Carolis winning a wide 12 round decision. The scoring by the 3 judges that worked the fight was baffling. Zeuge couldn’t throw power shots, and he was badly outworked, and yet the judges scored it a draw.