28.11.2005: Should Austria’s rags-to-riches-back-and-forth superwelterweight Gotti Hinteregger claim the WBF ‘world’ crown in his next fight when clashing in a rubber match with Hungarian Jozsef Matolcsi, he will become the fifth ‘world’ champion for manager Olaf Schroeder’s German company Fight Production in the last seven years. Even in the days of multiple sanctioning bodies, that is quite an astonishing success for the German company, especially when you “can’t buy the title bouts the way the big promoters can,” as Schroeder likes to put it.

Fight Production’s world title history began with Dutchman Raymond Joval in the summer of 1999. The middleweight from Amsterdam had signed with Schroeder the previous year, a move that would turn Joval into an established name in his weight division within short time. He challenged Agostino Cardamone in Italy for the WBU title and despite the cards being stacked against him proceeded to destroy the Italien in nine rounds.

Cardamone belonged at the time amongst the three or four best middleweights in the world, but Fight Production had its first ‘world’ champion and the looser never boxed again! Though conceeding the same title in his first defence against Antonio Perugino in a close fight, Joval jumped right back into the frame by relieving South Africa’s Mpush Makambi of the IBO ‘world’ crown in his next fight in September 2000. Two successful defences followed that saw Joval outpointing current IBF # 1 Sam Soliman and Makambi in a rematch, before Schroeder and his champion amicably parted ways in late 2002.

The next Fight Production ‘world’ champion hailed again from The Netherlands, when power-punching Richel Hersisia claimed the vacant WBF ‘world’ heavyweight crown against Sandro Abel Vazquez of Argentina in May 2003 in Den Haag. In his only defence, Hersisia won clearly over 12 rounds on points in a riveting, at times even sensational slugfest against Finn Sami Elovaara. His reign came to an end in March 2004 when Hersisia suffered his only loss to date against former Olympic gold medallist Audley Harrison. To this day, Hersisia and Schroeder stick together.

In the meantime, Fight Production had developed superwelterweight Mihaly Kotai from Hungary (Photo) and he duely won the vacant WBF superwelterweight belt in June 2003 against Russian Akhmed Oligov. Despite suffering a surprise 6-round over-the-weight non-title upset in his very next fight, which cost Kotai his unbeaten record but not his title, the Hungarian proceeded to make five successful defences of the belt against Monney Seka, Derek Roche, Floyd Trumpet, Kenny Dalton and Manning Galloway.

The contract between Kotai and Fight Production ended earlier this year and was not renewed, but not before the team reached what is the high point of Kotai’s career to date. In their last fight together, Kotai won a decision over Raul Eduardo Bejarano in what was not just a defence of his WBF ‘world’ belt but also for the vacant IBO title.

“Fight Production ‘World’ Champ # 4”, that distinction belongs to French-Armenian Arsen Khachatrian, a middleweight like the aforementioned Joval. Khachatrian signed a promotional contract with Schroeder early in 2004 and the German manager delivered a title shot almost immediately. In June of that year, Arsen outpointed Tshepo Mashego to not only win the WBF Fight of the Year award, but more importantly that organizations ‘world’ middleweight crown. Due to injuries, Khachatrian has defended only once so far, thwarting the challenge of Dominican José Joaquin Rosa Gomez on points last summer.   Photo: Arsen Khachatrian

Now the spotlight is on Austria’s Gotthard ‘The Cougar’ Hinteregger, who on December 9 aims to become what would easily be Fight Production’s most surprising ‘world’ champion. “My biggest dream is just one fight away and I desire to pay back Olaf for the trust he had in me and for coming up with opportunity after opportunity for me,” said Hinteregger recently. Supposedly, it’s going to be impossible telling who would be happier for the other in this case, but rest assured Jozsef Matolcsi, on his part, wants to make sure it’s his dream that comes true next month…