by Nino Celic | Thu. June 10, 2010

Now that the dust has settled, last weekend's Sauerland card looks less controversial than it initially appeared to be. Following approximately 10 minutes of score tallying, a little scuffle broke out when one of Karamzin's people tried to photograph the scoring sheets. Sources close to the scene have since revealed the reason behind the incident, Judge Pasquale Procopio scored the bout 6 rounds for each fighter. Procopio added the numbers incorrectly resulting in a 114 - 113 score for Karmazin.

With the other judges having the fight 118 - 111 for Sylvester and 117 - 111 for Karmazin, the Russian fighter would have been declared the new IBF champion by way of a split decision. The ring announcer made Procopio aware of his mistake causing the score to be changed to 114:114, which ultimately led to a draw and Sylvester keeping his title. The real question though was, 'Why were the other two judges were so far apart in their score?'

Apparently Matthew Podgorski went for Karmazin's higher work rate, while John Lawson more than likely scored Sylvester's effective punching. Either way, this was a close fight, that could have gone 7-5 either way. Having it 9-3 or 9-2-1 certainly isn't acceptable and made the outcome unnecessarily controversial. Although this is not the promoter's fault, last Saturday surely didn't help Germany's already damaged reputation. This incident is sure to heat up discussions about the (in)competence of officials appointed by the sanctioning bodies. 

From what it looks like at the moment, the fight taking place at the Frankfurt Commerzbank-Arena on Sep. 11 will be between Wladimir Klitschko and Alexander Povetkin. The bout already is listed on boxrec, and while that alone may not mean much, the fight is likely to come off because of Klitschko's limited options: David Haye recently rejected a 50/50 split with no rematch-clauses whatsoever, Audley Harrison tried to get his name into play by vacating his Euro-title but was quickly rejected by Klitschko's Manager Bernd Bönte.

While it seems likely that Klitschko - Povetkin will eventually come together, two issues prevent K2 and Sauerland from reaching an official agreement: Sauerland want the match to take place in the capital of their fighter's homeland, Moscow, while K2 want to continue their German stadium tour.

The other obstacle is choosing the method of drug testing: Povetkin still demands Olympic style tests a là Floyd Mayweather, while Klitschko wants to continue doing standard urine tests. Compromises will have to be reached since the fight date is only three months away, the results of the negotiations should be announced shortly.