BOXING - Azzaoui to relaunch his career

NORTHLAND cruiserweight boxer Mohammed Azzaoui hopes an invite to compete in a new professional world fight series being promoted by former All Blacks winger Jonah Lomu will help relaunch his career in the ring.
Azzaoui's burgeoning international success was cut off at the knees late last year by two defeats in quick succession, dealing his previously unblemished professional career a huge setback.
His management team might have wondered how best to reintroduce him to the game - until that is, the Lomu-promoted KO World Series 2008 rolled into town.
The event, on May 2, starts with eight bouts in Wellington next weekend.
It will take Azzaoui back to his amateur days with each bout four rounds in duration. His opponent is also well known to him, South African-based Ghanain Alori Moyoyo Mensah.
The two fighters last clashed with the Pan African belt on the line in September 2006, with Azzaoui's speed responsible for him outpointing the Ghanaian in a very even fight.
Azzaoui's manager Anthony Warren said Mensah is no pushover and Azzaoui will have to be at somewhere near his best to beat him.
The series is an interesting innovation in the sport based on a model similar to the television boxing series The Contender.
"It's quite an interesting card and an excellent concept, and I think it will do well because it will be so action-packed with four rounds of boxing in each bout, I think you'll see the professionals going flat out to make an impression and that will be a good spectacle," Warren said.
Participants selected are champions in their respective countries and will represent their region in this prestigious tournament. The winners from the Wellington round will be matched against winners from an identical contest in Macau, China, with the regional finals in Croatia on July 5. The boxers will then go on to a global final in Las Vegas.
The series has come at a good time for Azzaoui and his team, who are treating it as an appetiser before getting back into belt fighting.
"We've done the most sparring we've ever done to prepare for this, and we've used Rusty's (Porter, his trainer) two sons. Mike, who's a stockily built inside fighter and then we moved to Rusty's other son, who's well over six foot and we've used him to do the long range work."
Warren believes that Azzaoui has the ability to overcome the setback of his two defeats against Welshman Enzo Maccarinelli in a WBO cruiserweight title fight in November and rising cruiserweight star Yoan Pablo Hernandez in December.
"In many respects we learned more from those fights than we did from all the others put together, so that helped us take something positive from those losses ... when all is said and done, it doesn't matter who you are, you've got to be able to lose too, as long as you take something away out of those losses."