On Saturday, December 15, at PalaGarda in Riva del Garda (Italy), OPI 2000 (Salvatore and Christian Cherchi) will stage a terrific show: in the main event Giacobbe Fragomeni and Silvio Branco will fight for the vacant WBC silver cruiserweight title. The winner will get the opportunity to fight for the WBC world title in 2013 as Fragomeni is rated at number 1 and Silvio Branco at number 2. Their first showdown, last March 17 in Pavia, was a huge promotional success: 3,000 fans filled the arena screaming like they were at the soccer stadium and the media gave huge coverage to the event which was attended also by many stars of the Italian show-biz. The fight ended in a draw: 114-114, 115-115 and 115-113 in favor of Branco. Obviously, both fighters felt that they won. “I’m gonna give it all in the rematch – said Fragomeni – and I will win”. Branco had the same attitude: “You already gave it all and lost. Watch the dvd and you will realize that you lost. After the 8th round I was ahaed on the scorecards. Somebody should explain to me how Giacobbe could get a draw”. Branco also produced a t-shirt where he wrote: “Only one will survive”.

 

After 11 years as a professional, [Giacobbe Fragomeni] built a record of 34 fights: 29 won (12 inside the distance), 3 lost and 2 drawn. He was WBC world cruiserweight champion from October 24, 2008 to November 21, 2009.

 

[Silvio Branco]’s record is made of 62 wins (37 by way of knock out), 10 losses and 3 draws. He won the WBU middleweight and super middleweight titles and the WBA world light heavyweight championship (twice). He also won the WBC International cruiserweight belt.

 

On the undercard some of the best Italian boxers will fight on the sixth round distance: WBC International super welterweight champion and WBC N. 4 [Emanuele Della Rosa] (30-1 with 8 knock outs), WBC International silver middleweight champion [Emanuele Blandamura] (17-0), unfeated cruiserweight [Mirko Larghetti] (17-0 with 10 kos) and former Italian super featherweight champion [Benoit Manno] (9-1).

 

The show will be aired live in Italy by SportItalia 2 starting at 09.00 p.m. and tape delayed in different countries.