Spaniard regains title

Press, 10 January 1987, Page 22

Spaniard regains title

NZPA-Reuter Madrid Alfredo Evangelista, of Spain, has regained the European heavyweight boxing title after a gap of seven years by stopping the Dutchman, Andre van den Oetelaar, in the fifth round at Bilbao. The Uruguayan-born fighter, who held the European crown from 1977 to 1979, floored his opponent with a left hook to the jaw midway through the round. Van den Oetelaar managed to rise but after a brief exchange of punches, the French referee, Raymond Bachelet, stopped the scheduled 12-round contest. The win took the 32-year-old Spaniard’s record to 61 wins from 74 professional fights and gave him the title stripped from Norway’s Stefan Tangstad for failing to defend it within the required time limit. Evangelista, a champion when the Dutchman was still dabbling in judo and motocross, took a 9kg advantage into the ring against an opponent of the same age but with just 18 professional bouts to his name. But his early attempts to force the pace met a spirited response from van den Oetelaar, who sent the Spaniard’s mouth guard spinning across the ring in the first round. After two more measured rounds, Evangelista took the initiative again in the fourth, connecting with a series of left hooks and cutting the Dutchman over the right eyebrow. He kept up the momentum in the fifth and after one minute and 48 seconds, had won the belated Christmas present he promised to his three-month-old son, Alfredito.