Uncrowned World Champion Alina Shaternykova

A fact hard to grasp: on December 16 in Essen (Germany), Alina Shaternykova (13-1) clearly overpowered WIBF world champion Regina Halmich (34-1, 10 knockouts), but the judges conspired to crown the FraЯlein with victory.

Halmich belongs to the same club as the Klychko brothers. On December 5, 1998, the day many of our compatriots remember (when Volodymyr Klychko lost to Ross Purity), Regina Halmich defended for the nineteenth time her WIBF world championship! At that time her rival was the Hungarian Victoria Pataki. Since then the German has won another twelve world championship bouts. In November she turned 24 (the Kyivan is one year her senior). Throughout her career, Halmich has lost one bout: she was beaten by the Mexican, Ivona Trevino. Before the National Professional Boxing League of Ukraine representative fought Halmich, she had had no defeats.

Of course, the Kyivan knew it would be not so easy to beat the German because the audience would, of course, support their compatriot, not her, and even if it were a nip and tuck, the judges would be predisposed to announce Halmich the winner.

Shortly before the match, Shaternykova’s coach, Oleksandr Likhter, unveiled his plans about the forthcoming fight: “Alina’s sparring partner, Viktoriya Oliynyk, has learned Halmich’s manner of fighting and copied it during the training sessions. Halmich delivers many powerful punches but often leaves herself unprotected. We must take advantage of this. We will be looking for soft spots and win for sure.” Alina fully obeyed the instruction for the bout watched by all Ukraine.

Incidentally, on December 16 the Essen match might have taken place without our countrywoman. The fee offered to the Kyivan by Universum Box Promotion was derisive indeed. When the Ukrainian athlete learned of the initial contract value, she said bluntly, “Frankly, it rubbed me raw. If you don’t increase the contract value, I’ll refuse to take part.”

Alina said before the bout that the German champion is just one more obstacle to be overcome in her career. No one knows what kind of mood reigned in Universum Box Promotion, but fans did believe that Alina would win. For example, members of the European Boxing Union, Marianna Borysova and Peter Stucke, who had seen various bouts of both rivals, thought that Alina was stronger than her rival in many aspects of boxing. We must give credit to the Bulgarian and Swiss sports functionaries: they proved good prophets. On Saturday night, Alina was indeed stronger on the ring.

What happened in Essen again confirms the simple truth: in professional boxing, money decides very many things, if not all. Kyivan Alina Shaternykova is one who fell prey to this truth. We are by no means biased against the German prizefighter, but is it conceivable to give one the champion’s belt for only two punches?

So what exactly happened in, or, to be more exact, outside, the ring in Essen? Out of three judges, only one justly awarded victory to Shaternykova: 97-93, the two others preferred Halmich: 100-90 and 98- 94. The only gentleman out of the three judges is Harold Lawrence. Later, the Universum Box Promotion’s official site would write that Lawrence had been looking at the girls who carried the round number placards, not at the two fighting women.

The bout was organized specially for Halmich. Americans came to look her over. They were hardly impressed by the champ’s work. On the contrary, Shaternykova received a host of proposals, the most lucrative coming from Great Britain. The Kyivan was offered to contest the world championship without any preliminary bouts but in a different version. The American experts said that if the bout had occurred in the US and had been organized by an American promoter with Halmich being American, the fake champion would have hardly won the belt. The Americans take utmost care of their audiences, and the latter can always find an alternative, given a wide choice. The proof of this is the fact that the German audience booed the judges’ decision. Like it or not, the prim Germans know about boxing, and they saw clearly who was in fact the best in the ring that day.

When Shaternykova came back to Kyiv, we managed to talk to her coach. He said journalists asked Alina at the press conference to comment on the fight. She asked, “Do you want to hear the truth?” They nodded. Alina told the truth, “I was simply robbed.” The funniest thing is that the contender left the ring without even one bruise, while Halmich’s face was badly cut up! When asked why she made such a poor show, Regina answered the flight from America was to blame.

We don’t know if she meant the flight in April... I will add that the Germans did not even organize any recreation for the world champion: they just gave her the air tickets and waved her good-bye. Late that night, Oleksandr Likhter and his disciple flew from DЯsseldorf to Zurich, where they had to stay overnight at the airport and only then fly to Kyiv.

All we can do is hope that Universum Box-Promotion will treat the Klychko brothers and Andriy Kotelnyk better than they did Alina Shaternykova, and our compatriot girl will surely win a world champion’s belt of her own!