By Alexey Sukachev

The November 4th boxing card in Krasnodar, Russia, organized by Kirill Pchelnikov’s promotional company, is slowly being put together in what promises to be a good night of action at the Basket Hall.

Leading the card is ex-WBC heavyweight champion Oleg Maskaev (38-7, 28 KOs). The Big O is 44 now but still hopes to land one last shot at bigger money and fame. He is 2-0 since coming back from a three-year long hiatus with a gimme over badly shot Owen Beck and hard-earned narrow win over still-capable journeyman Jason Gavern. This time Maskaev was slated to take on one of his previous conquerors Corey Sanders but will face another very shot former stalwart instead – it’ll be Danny Williams (44-18, 33 KOs), once a sensational winner over Mike Tyson and twice BBBofC British and Commonwealth beltholder.

From one standpoint, Williams, 40, who is 0-8 in his recent fights, is playing with fire, fighting at this stage of his career and risking his health. Many fans actively object his desire to fight on, cursing local federations for allowing the Brit to get licensed time and again. On the other hand, Maskaev looks a shell of his former self and is very much past his prime, which can make this a competitive fight.

In a co-feature, WBC #3, IBF #7 and WBO #12 super middleweight Maxim Vlasov (26-1, 12 KOs) takes on Ukrainian counterpart Artiom Red’ko (20-2-3, 11 KOs). This will be a rematch of the 2006 collision between those two fighters, which ended with a unanimous decision over six in favour of Vlasov, and both boxers were down in the 6th. This time the fight is set for ten rounds.

Russian welterweight champion David Avanesyan (15-1-1, 8 KOs) will be pitted against Argentinean veteran Carlos Leonardo Herrera (24-5, 10 KOs) for a vacant WBC Baltic welterweight title. Avanesyan is best known for his close draw with 23-0 Aslanbek Kozaev earlier this year, his controversial win over tough Roman Seliverstov the last year and for his early career loss to Andrey Klimov. Herrera had his ups and downs but is known mostly in a negative way – as a victim of the first-round TKO of the hands of Canelo Alvarez.

Rugged Uzbek Behzod Nabiyev (22-5-1, 16 KOs) will replace his compatriot Alisher Rakhimov, a victim of the recent brutal street assault, in a fight versus Aik “Humanoid” Shakhnazaryan (8-0, 20 KOs). Also on the card are: lightweight Fedor Papazov (13-0, 9 KOs), light middleweights Sherzod Husanov (17-0-1, 8 KOs) and Felix Amoev (6-1, 4 KOs), and cruiserweight Ruslan Faifer (1-0).

The show will be aired live through Allboxing.ru, starting at 8 PM LT on Monday.