OnThEGRiND BOXiNG

Saturday January 30th, 2010
by Nino Celic - OnThEGRiND BOXiNG Central Europe

Interesting developments have occurred recently at the world level of the German boxing scene. IBF Middleweight Champion Sebastian Sylvester was originally scheduled to fight Argentinean Pablo Navascues on January 30th, however the South American boxer has tested positive for a forbidden substance. It is worth noting that he was caught by a random drug test, performed by the Austrian Boxing Committee.

Team Sauerland therefore was left without an opponent, and little more than a week to fill the scheduled date. Having a sold out crowd and a pretty stacked card that includes interesting match-ups such as Robert Helenius vs. Lamon Brewster, they didn’t want to call the event off. Instead they went to search for a last minute replacement, which is a difficult task ten days before the fight.

Of course very few ranked fighters would accept such an important fight on such short notice, but because original opponent Navascues was such a poor choice (his biggest achievement was a draw against a 41-year-old Castillejo), there was a good chance that the replacement would be a better selection.

To the relief of boxing fans, that’s exactly what happened. Team Sauerland picked the IBF’s #14 ranked middleweight Billy Lyell, an American that trains in the same gym as Kelly Pavlik, and is also trained by (Pavlik’s trainer) Jack Loew. While Lyell may not have the best record in the business (21-7, 4 KOs), this is largely due to his being hired as an ‘opponent’ against hot prospects such as James Kirkland, Read more »