By Alexey Sukachev

Macedonia, a small Balkan state, surrounded by bigger and more powerful countries, is renowned for its very active and numerous Albanian diaspora. In order to please his countrymen, local promoter Islam Sakiri brought to Skopje one of the most successful Albanian expatriates Nuri Seferi, with his younger brother Sefer, and another ethnic Albanian Agron Dzila, who lives in Switzerland (and so do Seferi brothers). All of them are cruiserweights, and WBO European champion Nuri is ranked as high as #5 by the WBO at 200lb.

However, a proposed heroic homecoming turned into a farce on Sunday night at Boris Trajkovski sports arena. Nuri’s Serbian challenger Nenad Stankovic (14-13-1, 10 KOs) started very aggressively but his combos mostly hit Seferi’s tight guard. As soon as Nuri opened up, the fight was over. The Albanian landed a left jab, Stankovic went down from what was a toy punch, and immediately the white towel was thrown in. Ridiculously, local referee waved the fight off, though the combat had barely started. It has to be reminded that only the referee (or doctor) can stop the fight, and referee has every right to let it go even with a floating towel, as was the case in a memorable war between Michael Katsidis and Graham Earl in 2007. Meanwhile, Seferi (33-6, 20 KOs) successfully retained his belt, which cannot be named anything but a paper trinket under these harsh circumstances.

It was even worse in a mismatch between Dzila (16-1, 12 KOs) and a parody for a boxer, named Nemanja Rugacevic (0-4, all by KOs). Dzila knocked him out in 17 seconds. He will be back on Nov. 3 in Germany against Roman Vanicky (14-30-1, 8 KOs). The only one, who was forced to work a bit harder for a win, was Sefer Seferi (16-0, 14 KOs), who outpointed his Hungarian opponent Gyula Bozai (8-5, 6 KOs) unanimously over six. Scores were: 60-53 (twice) and 60-54.

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Steve Jamoye (12-0, 2 KOs), a twin but heavier brother of continentally-known Belgian bantamweight Stephane Jamoye, continued his undefeated run this past Saturday in Liege, Belgium. The national champion outpointed dangerous Nicaraguan trialhorse Orlando Membreno (11-15-1, 10 KOs) over six brutal rounds. Scores were: 58-55 (twice) and 58-56 – for light welterweight Jamoye.

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It took rising Finnish cruiserweight Janne Forsman (6-0, 3 KOs) just a minute to got his biggest career win so far. On Saturday in Joensuu knocked out previously undefeated countryman Marko Mononen (4-1) in precisely 60 seconds to claim a vacant national 200lb belt. The new champion is being promoted by Petro Koskimies.

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Polish middleweight Robert Swierzbinski (10-0, 3 KOs) outpointed dangerous Latvian journeyman Olegs Fedotovs (15-9, 11 KOs) in a rough fight on Saturday night in Grajewo, Poland. The sole score was 78-76 – for the Pole, who didn’t look like a real winner in this even affair. Well-known former journeyman Dariusz Snarski promoted the event.

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Troubled former 2008 Olympian for Team Sweden Naim Terbunja (4-0) is slowly building up his professional career, switching between Kosovo, Serbia and Sweden. He got some problems on October 6 in the Kosovar capital of Pristina, being almost held to a draw by the limited Pole Bartolomiej Grafka (6-3, 2 KOs), who had lost his previous two. The scores were very close, and an unusually huge number of even rounds have been scored: 60-59, 59-59 (a draw) and 60-58 – MD 6 for Terbunja.

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Possible the only active Rwandan fighter in the world, Patrick Kinigamazi (18-1, 3 KOs), scored a very rare stoppage – also on Saturday, in his adopted land of Switzerland. Kinigamazi notched a TKO 3 over Hungarian Janos Vass (4-9, 4 KOs).