By Per Ake Persson

The chief support to the World Boxing Super Series semifinal on Saturday (Feb 24) in Nuremberg fell apart when Nieky Holzken stepped in for Juergen Braehmer to face Callum Smith and that left Dmitry Chudinov without a fight.

The pick of the undercard is now a heavyweight clash between Croatian prospect Filip Hrgovic, 3-0, and Irishman Sean Turner, 12-1.

Also on the bill is light heavyweight Arijan Sherifi, 12-0-1, who is in against the hard-punching Yevgeny Makhteienko, 9-9, and super middleweight James Kraft, 13-0, takes on veteran Bernard Donfack, 23-17-3.

The Max Schmeling Gym in Berlin might be closing, writes BILD. Sauerland Event that owns the gym have an option that runs out on June 30 to renew the contract and they are still undecided on the future.

The Max Schmeling Gym has over the years been home to champions like Arthur Abraham, Nikolai Valuev, Marcus Beyer and Marco Huck and a solid bunch of contenders.

However, times change and the "new" Sauerland has moved its main office to Hamburg and have fewer fighters in Germany under contract. Kalle Sauerland has also signalled that fighters in the future should organize their own training including paying trainers from their purse.

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Cruiserweights Fabio Turchi, 14-0, and Micki Nielsen, 25-1, are now co-challengers for the vacant EU title. The EBU have set March 12 as deadline for purse bids or agreements. Turchi is in the US promoted by Real Deal Promotions and in Italy by Boxe Loreni while Nielsen is with Team Sauerland.

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EBU super lightweight champion Anthony Yigit, 21-0-1, makes his US debut March 9 at the Dead Mountain Grand in Deadwood, South Dakota. Yigit square off against Ivan Baranchyk, 17-0, in a final IBF eliminator. Yigit is likely to relinquish the EBU title by Monday when there are purse bids scheduled for the mandatory defence against Franck Petitjean. Co-headlining the Deadswood show is a fight for the interim WBC super lightweight title between Julius Indongo and Regis Prograis.

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Agon Promotions, headed by Ingo Volckman, makes as previously reported its debut on March 10 in Guetersloh with Jack Culcay vs Craig Cunningham on top.

On the undercard there´s several interesting fights. The hard-punching but technically limited Arman Torosjan. 19-4-1, goes for the IBF East/West title against Jama Saidi, 11-0, and heavyweight Edmund Gerber, 26-2, who is another former Sauerland fighter, returns and takes on Gabriel Enguema, 8-4-0. Greek heavyweight Evgenios Lazarides, 12-1, take on Frenchman Samuel Kadje, 10-0, with the Int´l German - BDB version - title at stake.