Amatruda brings 'Foxtel fights' back to Melbourne
On Thursday March 18th, leading promoters Brian Amatruda and Barry Michael will present a six-fight card at the Flemington Racecourse that will be televised live nationwide through Fox Sports. The card will be the first Fox Sports' card in Melbourne since Murray Thomson's Fighters Factory promotion back in July of 2008. Although its been almost two years, this card is well worth the wait.
The card was originally set to feature five championship title-fights in a night where any of the displayed fights could have been the headline act (before Gairy St Clair pulled out of a fight with Lance Gostelow and Tui Leveni popped out shoulder).
Speaking exclusively to FIGHT GAME, promoter Brian Amatruda says he isnt too effected by the withdrawals of fighters so close to the date.
"St Clair pulled out as I believe he knew Lance was going to be too good. The card is so strong it hasn't affected us one bit, its still a great show but we are disappointed for Lance who had trained hard for this fight."
"We wanted to do the very best fights available and all of them are worthy of main events so we just ran with it, we presume there will be a stoppage or two but we don't know by who as they are all 50/50 fights."
Gostelow who penciled in to defend both his WBO Oriental and African light-welterweight titles, along with his WBO #8 light-welterweight world rating.
A fight that has generated a fair bit of interest is the matchup between the returning former IBF lightweight champion Philip Holiday and former Commonwealth Games representative Samuel Colomban who is making the first defense of his WBO Oriental welterweight title. Although it is Holiday's first fight back in seven years, he has fought the likes of Shane Mosley, Hector Camacho Jr, Ivan Robinson and Thomas Damgaard.
Amatruda is confident that Holiday will return in great shape and will give his charge a good fight.
"I heard from Lovemore Ndou that Philip (Holiday) was looking at returning so I asked him to fight Colomban, who is very hard to match and to his credit he took possibly the hardest comeback fight that you could get. Philip is extremely confident but Colomban looks the best I have ever seen him." said Amatruda.
In an interesting cross-roads battle, big-punching Shane Cameron will take on another man with heavy fists in John Hopoate in a fight that is certain to create fireworks. Both fighters are coming off losses so it will be interesting to see which of the two fighters has the stronger character to re-build after knockout losses.
"Shane is training out of Melbourne and we will be promoting all his fights in Australia. Shane and his manager Ken are great guys to work with."
Also on the card will be WBO #13 super-bantamweight Daniel "Babyface" Iannazzo who will make the biggest step-up of his career, on paper at least when he takes on Indonesian Rivo Rengkung.
Whether you are at ringside, in the stands or watching the fights from the comfort of your home, be sure to congratulate the promoters for putting on another great night of championship boxing.