Vitali Klitschko, head of K2 East Promotions promotional company was the first to take the floor at the presser dedicated to the upcoming boxing tournament “Champion’s Summer”. The champ introduced participants of the tournament. The fight card will be held in Odessa on July 18th. It will be the 6th big boxing event out of 10 which K2 East Promotions organizes this year. In the main event Avtandil Khurtsidze (18-1-2, 11 KOs) will defend his WBA Inter-Continental middleweight belt in the title bout against 29-year-old Jamel “The Elegant” Bahki (19-2-2, 5 K?s) from Belgium.
Vitali Klitschko: Ukrainian fans will see three boxing stars who will step into the ring on July 18th in Odessa where with the support of world famous brand Nemiroff and Inter media-group we will hold a big fight card “Champion’s Summer”. Those stars are: Avtandil “Tornado” Khurtsidze and Vyacheslav “Steel Power” Uzelkov. Khurtsidze will be defending his WBA Inter-Continental middleweight belt for the third time. It is interesting to know that Avtandil won his belt in the same ring in Odessa in June of 2008. Khurtsidze will face a solid opposition in Jamel Bahki who won 19 fights and was defeated two times only.
Last year in Odessa Sportpalace Avtandil Khurtsidze, a Ukrainian based Georgian, clashed against an experienced Argentinean Javier Alberto Mamani for vacant WBA Inter-Continental middleweight title and got a MD victory. After that Khurtsidze successfully defeated his belt twice leaving no chance to his rivals Valentin Antonio Ochoa and Attila Kovacs. Now Khurtsidze occupies the fourth position in WBA world rankings.
A hot middleweight slugger Khurtsidze is extremely popular among boxing fans in Ukraine due to his aggressive style. He got the moniker «Crack-burglar» among his boxers associates for his specific style – Avtandil usually immediately breaks into defensive walls of his rivals.
His opponent in the upcoming bout Jamel Bahki is a solid fighter with 19 victories in his record, 2 losses only and 2 draws. After those 2 draws the Belgian won both rematches and as far as his defeats are concerned they occurred in close fights against strong boxers. One of them – Domenico Spada – recently became mandatory challenger for interim WBC middleweight title and will collide against Sebastian Zbik on July 11th in Germany. Bahki is not a puncher but at the same time he has quite a solid chin: he was neither stopped nor even dropped during his boxing career.
In the co-event of «Champions’ Summer» fight card Vyacheslav Uzelkov (20-0, 12 KOs), WBA Inter-Continental light heavyweight champion will fight in a non-title ten-rounder. In a tune-up fight he will face Istvan Varga (14-7, 5 KOs) from Romania.
