By Per Ake Persson

Silvio Branco has announced his retirement. The 47-year old Italian goes out at 63-11-3 in a career that began at middleweight back in 1988 and finished at cruiser weight26 years later after an amazing career. Branco held the WBU (the original British based organization that for a few years in the 90´s had some credibility) super middleweight title and the WBA light heavyweight crown, challenged Sven Ottke for the IBF super middleweight title and was always close to a title shot. His last world title fight came against WBC lightheavy titleholder Jean Pascal in 2009. Branco´s last fight was this past summer when he won the WBC silver title by stopping Juho Haapoja.