WBA junior welterweight champion Guyanese Vivian Harris kept his title with a narrow majority decision over Oktay Urkal last night at the Max-Schmeling-Halle in Berlin, Germany.
Harris floored his foe with a short right hook in round three but failed to close the show as a very slick Urkal showed excellent body movement and counter-punching ability throughout the contest. Refereee Stanley Christodolou penalised Harris for a low blow in round eight after many warnings in the previous rounds. Final scores were 114-112, 114-112 and 113-113. The card was promoted by Sauerland Event.
On a terrific undercard, 7'2" heavyweight Nikolai Valuev (36-0) out-pointed former WBC cruiser champ Marcelo Dominguez (37-5-1) in ten; unbeaten Ukrainian Vitaly Tsypko (13-0) retained his WBA-Intl belt at 168-pound with a clear decision win over former Euro middleweight champ Alexander Zaitsev (27-11) of Russia; and Pedro Miranda (33-3) of Spain retained his WBA-Intl lightweight title out-pointing Muzaffer Tosun (5-3-2) of Germany. Both the WBA-Intl title fights were twelve-rounders.
Finally, German heavyweight Timo Hoffmann (30-3; 17KOs) stopped Quinn Navarre (30-12-1; 20KOs) of the USA in two rounds. Hoffmann is the current WBO-Intl ruler, but his belt was not at stake against the American journeyman.
Next up for the German heavy could be a title challenge versus countryman Luan Krasniqi for the European crown. (Fightnews.com)