March 2, 2000

Lübeck - March 2, 2000. WBC cruiserweight world champion Juan Carlos Gomez trains hard every day at the gym of Universum Box-Promotion in Hamburg for his fight on March 11 at Hansehalle Lübeck.

With fights against several name opponents his challenger Joseph Siluvangi has already proven that he belongs to the top-rated cruiserweights.

"I know it will be a hard piece of work", Gomez said before his seventh title defense. "But there is no doubt that I'm going to win. I am the best cruiserweight of all time!"

Gomez' coach Torsten Schmitz is satisfied about the attitude of his fighter as well. "He trains harder than ever. I have to hold him back during sparring. Otherwise he would knock out our sparring partners. In 24 fights Siluvangi only dropped one decision. But against Juan he could be stopped for the first time."

Gomez knows about Siluvangi's strength. However, the Hamburg based Cuban already thinks about his future.

"I talked to my manager Peter Hanraths", the athletic 6-foot-4 fighter explains. "Finally I want a unification fight against one or against all world champions of the other organizations."

The other world champions at cruiserweight are Frenchman Fabrice Tiozzo (WBA), the Brit Johnny Nelson (WBO) and the US based Russian Vassiliy Jirov.

"After I unified all cruiserweight world titles like Evander Holyfield before me I will move up to the heavyweights and become a world champion there as well."

The undefeated Gomez, 29-0 (24 KOs) who is rated as best cruiserweight champion worldwide by boxing experts will defend the title that he captured against Marcelo Dominguez in 1998 for the seventh time.

In the co-main event Swede Armand Krajnc will defend his WBO middleweight world title against American Jonathan Corn.