Paris United was set up by Olympic Champion Brahim Asloum
(Sydney 2000), who is working together with skilled professionals
specialised in sport events and PR management. Asloum is in charge
of managing boxers' careers and identifying new talent with the
help of the FFB (Fédération
Française de Boxe).
Asloum's ultimate objective is to enhance young people's interest
in boxing so as to increase membership and to create and develop a
boxing academy. He plans to offer most of the young talented boxers
who will join the academy the means to increase their chances to
become future sports stars and for some of them to prove their
talent by winning an Olympic title just like him.
Throughout the regular season, Paris United were chased by Dolce &
Gabbana Milano Thunder in the European conference. In fact, all
of the team's three losses in the regular season were against the
Milan team. But Paris United's unbeaten record against all the
other teams in the conference put them in first place after all
twelve matches - two points and one win ahead of Milan.
Paris United won the draw and chose to contest their first
semi-final match against the Baku Fires away. Algerian lightweight
Abdelkader Chadi had the honour of making his WSB debut in this
match, but light heavyweight Ludovic Groguhe was the only Paris
boxer to emerge still unbeaten in Baku after the individual
championship contender dismissed European championship
semi-finalist Denys Poyatsyka of the Ukraine.
Although Paris United lost the first leg 4-1, Brahim Asloum had
plenty of talent in reserve for the crucial second leg in Paris,
including no. 2 bantamweight overall Nordine Oubaali and no. 3
lightweight Rachid Azzedine. These two stars got the home team off
to an early lead with two wins by unamimous decisions. Michel
Tavares then notched up a third consecutive win for the team to
bring the cumulative scores level and set his two Croatian
team-mates Hrvoje Sep and Filip Hrgovic up for a thrilling
finale.
As Sep scored a fourth win for the home team, Paris United had one
foot in the finals, leaving Youth World Champion Filip Hrgovic to
face Russian Sergey Kharitonov, who had only made his WSB debut in
week 12 but is well known as a former international MMA star. The
18 year-old Hrgovic was totally unfazed by the power and experience
of his 30 year-old opponent, however. He not only withstood the
mighty onslaught from the Russian heroically but also repeatedly
counter-attacked, using his superior height and reach to great
effect. After an exhausting 15 minutes of battle, Hrgovic won the
bout by split decision in a fitting conclusion to a night of
superlative boxing in Paris.