Cherif Hamia

Cherif Hamia
Data
Birth Name	Cherif Hamia
Weight class	Featherweight
nationality	French
birthday	March 23, 1931
place of birth	Guergou , Algeria
Date of death	1991
style	Left-hand boom
Combat Statistics
Struggles	38
Victories	33
Knockout victories	15th
Defeats	3
draw	2

Cherif Hamia (born March 23, 1931 in Guergou , Algeria , † 1991 ) was a French boxer . He was European champion of professional boxers in featherweight.

Career

Cherif Hamia was born in Algeria. Until its independence, Algeria was considered part of the French metropolitan area. Therefore he must be seen as a French boxer of Algerian origin. He completed his sporting career in Paris, although it is not known how and where he started boxing.

Amateur career

Cherif Hamia was already a successful amateur boxer. In 1953 he was French featherweight champion with a victory in the final over Louis Poncy . In May 1953 he started for France at the European Championship of Amateur Boxers in Warsaw. In featherweight he won it in the round of 16 over Burkhard Schröter from the GDR on points (3-0 RS). In the quarterfinals he met Józef Kruża from Poland, to whom he was defeated by just a few points (1: 2 RS). He came in 5th place.

Subsequently, he was appointed to a European selection, which played two comparative fights in the United States in June 1953. On June 16, 1953 he defeated in Chicago in featherweight the "Golden Gloves Champion" of Chicago Dick Martinez and on June 23, 1953 in St. Louis the "Golden Gloves Champion" of St. Louis Bo Tenequer each on points .

Profile career

In the fall of 1953, Cherif Hamia became a professional boxer. He trained in Paris and was a member of Philippe Filippi's "boxing stable", who was also his manager, supervisor and trainer. He played his first fight on November 27, 1953 in Paris and came to a technical knockout victory in the first round over Jean Demeurs. He also won the next 13 fights in Paris and Algiers. On November 22, 1954, he boxed in Paris against Jacques Dumesnil and took this from the French featherweight championship by a knockout victory in the 10th round.

He suffered his first defeat as a professional boxer on December 10, 1954 in Algiers when he was caught "cold" by the Belgian featherweight champion Louis Cabo in the first round and was knocked out. However, he did not let this mishap stop him and almost all of his next fights were victorious. On June 27, 1955, he defended his French featherweight championship in Paris with a knockout victory in the 5th round over Mohammed Chickaoui. On September 26, 1955, he beat the German featherweight champion Rudi Langer from Berlin just on points in Paris. On December 11, 1955 he defeated his French compatriot Robert Cohen , who, like him, came from Algeria and was the reigning world champion in bantamweight at the time of the fight , by technical knockout in the 10th round. On January 26, 1956, Cherif Hamia reached a draw in Paris against the Belgian ex-European champion Jean Sneyers . Cherif Hamia was at that time in the world ranking list of the US professional boxing journal "The Ring" in featherweight only in 15th place.

Since he and his manager wanted a world championship fight, he went to the United States and boxed on March 30, 1956 against Carmelo Costa from the United States, who was in the world rankings of "The Ring" for March 1956 at number 2. Cherif Hamia defeated Carmelo Costa after 10 rounds on points. On May 4, 1956, he beat in Washington Ike Chestnut from the United States and on June 15, 1956 in New York the Puerto Rican Miguel Berrios , both also aspirants for a world championship fight, each on points. With these victories he had acquired the right to challenge the reigning featherweight world champion Sandy Saddler from the United States. However, that fight did not materialize in 1956 and in late 1956 Sandy Saddler resigned.

On January 21, 1957, Cherif Hamia then won in Paris with a point victory after 15 rounds over Jean Sneyers the vacant European Championship (EBU) in featherweight. On June 24, 1957, he was finally able to fight for the world featherweight title in Paris, which was vacant after the resignation of Sandy Saddler. His opponent was the physically very strong, fast and also technically skilled Nigerian Hogan "Kid" Bassey . In the first rounds Cherif Hamia dominated the fight and even sent Bassey down to "8" in the second round. In the further course of the fight, which was scheduled for 15 rounds, became more and more even. In the 10th round, in a somewhat confusing situation, both fights went to the ground near the rope without impact. Both got up immediately and it was Bassey who took advantage of the situation first and hit the somewhat disoriented Cherif Hamia with two tough right straights on the chin, so that the referee Rene Schemann took him out of the fight and Hogan "Kid" Bassey was proclaimed the new world champion. This outcome of the fight was very unfortunate for Cherif Hamia and he and his management felt that the referee had deprived them of the possible victory.

Cherif Hamia continued his career after this unfortunate defeat and won the next three fights. On October 15, 1959, he lost in Brussels against the Belgian Pierre Cossemyns on points and then ended his career.

literature

• Box Sport magazine

Web links

• Cherif Hamia in the BoxRec database
• amateur-boxing.strefa.pl
• Excerpt from the fight between Cherif Hamia and Hogan "Kid" Bassey