Unbeaten but largely untested contenders Granit Shala and Oleksandr Zakhozhyi will meet for the vacant European heavyweight title at the AGON Sportpark, Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany on April 13.

Shala (15-0, 5 knockouts) turned professional in his native Germany in 2017. Since then, the 27-year-old was remained active facing steadily better opposition.

The 6-foot-3, 260-pound fighter holds wins over journeyman Zine Eddine Benmakhlouf (UD 10) and, most recently, Argentine trialhorse Jorge Alejandro Arias (TKO 6).

Zakhozhyi (18-0, 14 KOs) also made his debut in 2017. However, the 30-year-old Ukrainian has had to fight mostly overseas.

The 6-foot-9 fighter has beaten the likes of Kevin Johnson (UD 8), Pavel Sour (TKO 3) and Evgenios Lazaridis (TKO 1).

Over the past few years the EBU heavyweight title has been stagnant and hasn’t attracted as many willing suitors as the European sanctioning body would like, and has only been contested twice since November 2020, when Joe Joyce impressively stopped Daniel Dubois in 10 rounds. The Brit quickly stepped into International class without defending his title. Several fights turned down the chance to contest the title and after several changes Agit Kabayel regained his old title getting off the canvas to stop Agron Smakici in three-rounds in March 2023.

Oleksandr Zakhozhyi – Photo by Torsten Helmke

Since then, we’ve seen a series of pull outs. Initially Tom Schwarz was the official challenger to Kabayel, who vacated. Schwartz was then tabbed to meet Ryad Merhy, only for the German to then move in a different direction. Merhy was then matched with Dubois. This time Merhy decided not to take the fight. In stepped Granit Shala and out stepped Dubois. Then Joyce was called to face Shala but decided against taking that route. Ultimately that left us with Shala and Zakhozhyi, who are matched to fill the vacancy.

The undercard will see the return of former IBF middleweight titlist Vincenzo Gualtieri for the first time since he lost his championship to Zhanibek Alimkhanuly in a unification last year. Gualtieri (21-1-1, 7 KOs) will meet Italian-based Nigerian Joshua Nmomah (13-2, 4 KOs).

Meanwhile, Thomas Piccirillo (13-0-4, 4 KOs) will face Alexander Pavlov (19-3, 14 KOs) in a scheduled 12-round middleweight bout. Lelito Lopez (10-0-2, 7 KOs) and Mohammed Graich (7-2, 5 KOs) square off in an 8-round super middleweight attraction. Heavyweight Alexander Mueller vom Berge (6-0, 4 KOs) will face an opponent to be named and lightweight Hamsat Shadalov (6-0, 1 KO) will also face an as yet unknown opponent.

Questions and/or comments can be sent to Anson at [email protected].

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