Boxing: WBA may strip Masoe of title

Maselino Masoe greets his daughter Gabriella, in Auckland, after winning the title in May 2004. Picture / Brett Phibbs

The World Boxing Association will face pressure to strip Maselino Masoe of his middleweight title when it holds its annual conference in Seoul, South Korea, next month.

Masoe, who won the title in May 2004, has twice provided evidence of wrist injuries to side-step mandatory defences and rules regarding handing the belt on.

The website BoxRec lists him as fighting Felix Sturm from Hamburg in Leverkusen, Germany on November 26 but that cannot happen unless Masoe gets out of the management and promotions contract that he has with trainer/promoter Mike Edwards and the legal action surrounding their parting.

There have been two lower court hearings in a case where Edwards seeks to assert his contractual agreement with Masoe prior to and after the South Auckland welder winning the WBA's middleweight belt with a TKO victory over Evans Ashira in May 2004.

Edwards has not been paid out after the win. His contract with Masoe has since expired and Masoe has used Australian Noel Thornberry as trainer and signed an agreement with Don King. But he has not fought and at age 39 his time is running out.

Sturm, 26, is 24-1 and has a world ranking of 14th according to BoxRec while Masoe, 26-2, is not ranked. But he has always trained well and still has the left-and-right KO punch that has floored 25 of his 28 opponents.

Talks are scheduled between Edwards and Masoe and their legal representatives in the next two weeks in a bid to resolve the contractual problems so that the German fight date can be confirmed. If there is no settlement, the WBA is sure to have the last word as Sturm's representatives will want him to have his chance at the title.

Meanwhile, Edwards is lining up another world title shot for Australian Paul Murdoch who has fought 10 times on cards he has promoted.

Murdoch is the Pan Asian Boxing Association light-heavyweight champ and as such gets a shot at Fabrice Tiozzo in Paris on December 5. Murdoch, 31, is 24-5 and Tiozzo, 36, is 47-2 with 31 KOs.

Edwards is shifting to Murdoch's base in Melbourne to oversee the build-up for what will be his fourth involvement with a world title fight after two attempts with Auckland's Anthony Bigeni then handling the build-up to the Masoe-Ashira bout.

Two New Zealand-resident immigrants who previously represented their country of birth at the Olympics will fight in China in November. Mohamed Azzaoui, the former Algerian cruiserweight champ and Peter Kariuki, formerly a Kenyan supper-middleweight champ, will both defend their PABA belts in those divisions in Beijing on November 27.

* New Zealand National Boxing Federation officials, Gary McCrystal and Peter Fluerty, have been appointed to the Pan Asian Boxing Association title fight in Fiji tomorrow between Australian junior middleweight champion Gary Comer and Fijian junior middleweight champion Toy Ali.