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Australian boxing enjoying a renaissance

Getty

Getty

Five Australian boxers will fight for world titles in a frantic burst of activity in the United States.

Daniel Geale’s much-anticipated clash with WBA middleweight Super champion Gennady Golovkin (29-0, 26 KOs) at New York’s Madison Square Garden on July 26 represents the first of four successive weekends Australians will fight for a belt.

“This is a huge time for Aussie boxing,” Geale (30-2,16 KOs) told AAP.

“We have some great talent in Australia and it’s time to bring some world titles back.”

Australia has two universally recognised world champions in WBC super middleweight title holder Sakio Bika and recently-crowned IBF middleweight king Sam Soliman.

Bika (32-5-3, 21 KOs) has his second defence pencilled in for August 16, a rematch of his first, last December, which resulted in a draw with American Anthony Dirrell (26-0-1, 22 KOs).

“This time I can’t give him a chance,” said Bika of the rematch, which is again expected to be in New York.

Also on that card, Western Australia’s Daniel Dawson (40-3-1,26 KOs) is set to fight former WBA light middleweight world champion Austin Trout (26-2,14 KOs).

The bout will be for either the WBA interim title or the number-one ranking in that division.

Light heavyweight Blake Caparello (19-0-1,6 KOs) and middleweight Jarrod Fletcher (18-1. 10 KOs) will get their cracks at a world title in the first two weeks of August.

Caparello gets his world title shot against Russia’s WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev (24-0-1, 22 KOs) in New Jersey on August 2.

“He was looking for an opponent and we put our hand up and pushed really hard for the fight,” Caparello said.

Fletcher, who was initially authorised by the WBA as Golovkin’s next opponent, will now fight American Danny Jacobs (27-1, 24 KOs) for the vacant regular WBA middleweight belt in New York on August 9.

“Things have worked out well, Gealey gets his opportunity and I get mine,” said Fletcher who has sparred 28 rounds with Geale this week.

Soliman, whose two main targets are Golovkin and WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto, revealed his manager David Stanley had fielded plenty of offers.

“I love that we’ve had offers because it gives us choices,” Soliman said.

Preceding the upcoming flurry of activity is the July 4 rematch in Toowoomba between former two-time WBO interim lightweight champion Michael Katsidis (29-6,24 KOs) and Britain’s Graham Earl,(26-4, 12 KOs), who the Queenslander stopped in a memorable slugfest in England in 2007.

AAP

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