Arena boxing promotion
Arena Box-Promotion is a boxing stable based in Hamburg .
history
In 2006, Ahmet Öner, a Turk who lives in Germany, founded the third Hamburg boxing stable after Universum Box Promotion and Spotlight Boxing with Arena Box Promotion . At the beginning he had mainly Turkish boxers such as Sinan Şamil Sam , Selçuk Aydin , middleweight Mahir Oral and welterweight Alpaslan Agüzüm under contract. Then he signed several stars such as ex-world champion Juan Carlos Gómez , the two-time amateur world championship third Steffen Kretschmann , the German amateur super heavyweight champion, Konstantin Airich , Herbie Hide and light welterweight Sergei Sorokin. After lengthy disagreements with his promoter Sauerland, Markus Beyer also switched to Arena Box-Promotion at the end of 2007 and signed a contract for four fights for the Hamburg boxing stable.
At the beginning of 2007, Arena Box-Promotion surprisingly managed to sign three escaped Cuban Olympic champions, Odlanier Solís , Yuriorkis Gamboa and Yan Barthelemí for three years. The attempt to sign two more Cuban amateur stars, Guillermo Rigondeaux and Erislandi Lara , failed in July 2007, as the two Cubans were apprehended by the Brazilian federal police after their escape in Brazil without valid visas and to Cuba under massive pressure from the Cuban government had to return. There they were banned from practicing their profession. In June 2008, Lara made a second attempt to escape successfully from Cuba.
Arena initially organized its fight evenings under license from the Bund Deutscher Berufsboxer (BDB), but due to several incidents and scandal surrounding Arena founder Ahmet Öner at several events, the association left the association and thus came before a license withdrawal. At an event in Barakaldo, Spain, Öner intervened in the fight between Danny Williams and Konstantin Airich by going to the timekeeper's table during the sixth round, operating the gong and thus shortening the round by more than a minute, as well as during the seventh round even caused the end of the fight by the throw of the towel. At an event in Hattersheim, Hesse, in June 2008, Öner had verbal derailments as well as assaulting referees and exerting massive pressure to help one of his boxers win. He also tried repeatedly to influence the judges in the European Championship fight between Paolo Vidoz and arena boxer Sinan Şamil Sam on July 4, 2008 in Ankara . The BDB thereupon asked Öner to comment on these incidents, whereupon he resigned from the association and held his events under a Latvian license.