August twentieth at ICC Exhibition Centre in Sydney, NSW. The vacant WBO Inter-Continental super welterweight title (incidentally last held by Nikita's older brother Timofei) will be on the line. This will either be the headline attraction or co-main event, depending on the Michael Zerafa situation. Zerada was supposed to make a first defense of his own WBO Inter-Continental title, at middleweight, versus American glass cannon and 10/1 underdog Michael Thomas Dahlman. Zerafa no-showed the press conference, however, and there is reportedly heightened drama between himself and promoters No Limit - with the question of whether the Dalhman bout will go ahead still lingering. Michael and Nikita shared card nearly a year ago. I'm kind of surprised No Limit didn't just have Tszyu move up and challenge Zerafa for his belt, rather than having them split the bill again to drag this rivalry out. As for Russian-Aussie's opponent, the Macedonian-German is technically undefeated in the pros. He is coming a stoppage loss in October under the IBA Pro banner, and in the amateurs he was successful domestically but got squashed anytime he stepped up to international level, and was knocked out by Kazakh southpaw Abilkhan Bekmuratuly Amankul.
I was considering attending but couldn’t be bothered on a cold wet Wednesday night in Sydney so I will be paying the bargain price of $59.95 to watch from the comfort of my living room. The ICC is a pretty big venue I heard the ticket sales are bad. Not sure why they didn’t just have it at the Hordern Pavilion again.
Yeah, looking at the ticketing site, there's still plenty of seats available. I just dont buy into the narrative that Nikita is some big ppv attraction.