WBSS: Juergen Braehmer withdraws from Callum Smith semifinals match

The World Boxing Super Series’ super middleweight tournament had been rolling along quite nicely, but has now run into a few issues over the past few days. The first issues was George Groves dislocating his shoulder in his win over Chris Eubank Jr., and now the semifinalist in the other bracket, Juergen Braehmer, has just pulled out of his scheduled fight with Callum Smith set for this weekend.

Braehmer is reported to be suffering from serious infection and his opponent, Smith, is now going to take on late replacement Nieky Holzken (13-0, 10 KOs) from the reserve undercard. The WBSS is expected to make a formal announcement on their revised plans soon.

Holzken, a former kickboxer not named Chris Algieri, has never fought anyone of note nor anyone near the caliber of Smith — so you can bet he’s a longshot to pull of a win here. But, as they say, it is what it is...

Even with this semifinals match still set to take place this weekend, Groves injury could still potentially pose some issues for the planned June 2nd finals match, but that sort of depends on how serious Groves’ injury is.

We’ll keep you posted.