The headline bout, by far, was in Germany as the dominant Wladimir Klitschko (62-3, 52) defended his WBA "super", WBO, IBF and IBO world titles with an excellent performance against WBO mandatory challenger Alex Leapai (30-5-3, 24). Although many complain about Klitschko holding he really didn't hold against Leapai and instead he resorted to jabbing and landing straights with ease. The activity was amazing for a 38 year old and when Leapai was eventually stopped in round 5 there was little doubt that these two were a million miles apart in terms of skill.
On the same card fans also got the chance to see the very highly touted Joseph Parker (8-0, 7) stopping Marcelo Luiz Nascimento (17-6, 15). Parker, from New Zealand, was taken beyond round 6 for the first time in his career though will have learned a lot and developed considerably from this fight, especially considering that he's still a professional novice. We're hoping to see Parker given some high level sparring between now and his next fight though as there is still a lot that needs sorting out with the way he fights.
Another bout in Germany saw the debuting Freskim Povataj (1-0, 1) stop fellow debutant Ali Fatah (0-1) in the second round.
Whilst the Klitschko bout was the biggest of the night it wasn't the best, in fact it wasn't even the best title fight of the night. That honour belongs to the European title fight that saw Australia's Lucas Browne (20-0, 18) stopping Canadian Eric Martel Bahoeli (10-4, 7) in 5 rounds of a bout that had action, blood and real excitement. Browne, one of our favourite fighters in the division, looked horribly out of shape at 273lbs but had more than enough for the Canadian who was dropped several times by "Big Daddy".
Staying in Europe, though moving over to Poland, fans got a quadro of action.
The main event of Polish action saw Marcin Rekowski (14-1, 11) over-come American veteran Oliver McCall (57-14-0-2, 37) and over-come his sole defeat in the process. Despite avenging his loss Rekowski came in at a career high weight whilst McCall was at his lowest weight for almost 7 years!
A complete mismatch on the Polish show saw former world title challenger Albert Sosnowski (48-6-2, 29) stop the horribly over-matched Wlodzimierz Letr (1-3, 1). Another of the bouts saw Michal Cieslak (5-0, 2) score a very credible stoppage victory over Art Binkowski (16-5-3, 11) who had only been stopped once in his previous 23 bouts.
The remaining Polish bout saw Roman Bugaj (17-8-1, 9) defeat the very limited Patryk Kowoll (2-12, 1) via a 4 round decision.
In Sweden novice professional Joel Larsson (3-0, 1) out pointed the win-less Jakub Kozera (0-2) over 4 rounds.
The only Heavyweight bout in the US appears to have been a contest that saw Jean Pierre Augustin (3-0, 1) score the first stoppage of his career as he saw off the debuting Joseph Bowman (0-1) inside a round.