13.12.2005: For the second time in a row, Austrian Gotthard Hinteregger was stopped in round eleven and now faces possible retirement after failing to win the vacant WBF ‘world’ superwelterweight crown in a rubber match with Jozsef Matolcsi last Friday night at the Pinewood Filmstudios just outside of London.

The action-packed fight itself, which put the Williams vs Harrison sleepwalk the next day in London to shame, however, wasn’t the story but rather the unusual circumstances and setting of it. As is known, the third meeting between ‘The Cougar’ and the Hungarian (both having won once each) was scheduled to take place in Scotland underneath the defence of Commonwealth welterweight champion Kevin Anderson – until that fight, and with it the whole show, was scrapped when Anderson’s challenger failed a blood test.

Both Hinteregger and Matolcsi officially stepped on the scales in Glasgow on Thursday afternoon, only to immediately afterwards leave for the airport to catch the next possible flight to London. There, promoters Krzysztof Zbarski and John Wischhusen, for Matchroom Boxing, proved that anything can be done if only an effort is made – and they set up a ring at Pinewood Filmstudios, next door where the new James-Bond-movie is currently filmed!

The result was a rather sterile setting, as there was no public admission, and no more than 30, 40 people, including all sporting and technical participants, were on site. However, the fight was saved and duely transmitted live to Hungary and Poland. “You can’t get any closer to having a fight in the privacy of your own living room,” smiled Hinteregger’s manager Olaf Schroeder, “it was quite weird for sure, but unique nevertheless.”

Schroeder’s smile disappeared rather quickly once the fight started, as Hinteregger was knocked down by a right hand of Matolcsi in the opening round! However, the Vienna veteran survived and a back-and-forth battle followed with Matolcsi mostly keeping the upper hand.

“He was much stronger than in our first two fights,” admitted Gotti, who himself appeared to fight much harder than when he lost his IBF Intercontinental title last October to Marco Schulze. But the Hungarian, from Debrecen, was not to be denied this time. After he wrestled his foe to the floor – wrongly ruled as a knockdown by referee Mickey Vann – he simply steamrolled Hinteregger in round 11 until Vann stopped the onslaught and saved the Austrian from further punishment.

Matolcsi is now under orders to defend his new WBF ‘world’ title against former champion Brice Faradji (to whom he lost already earlier this year), while Hinteregger seems to have few options other than retiring. The 38-year-old was non-committal though, saying:

“After having been in the gym without interruption for five months now, I will take a good break and enjoy Christmas and the New Year with my fiancee. Then I will sit down with my trainers Hermann Bendl and Wolfgang Reiterer and we will analyze the fight and my performance. If we will come to the conclusion that I can’t improve anything, that I reached the maximum of my potential, well, then I will not step in the ring ever again.”

“Gotti knows what I think, we had too good times together to spoil those memories,” said Schroeder. “At an age where most are gone from the ring, he achieved much, much more than anyone expected from him and that at the tail-end of his career. He’s got IBF and WBO (Intercontinental) belts at home, he held a serious (WBO) world rating and will go down as Austria’s most successful boxer in more than a decade. Why not leave it at that?”