Who is Labinot Xhoxhaj, the heavyweight boxing champion of Europe?

Least of all Xhoxhaj, 20-0-1 (16), who came into the ring at short notice last November to outpoint Oleksandr Zakhozhyi in Heidelberg, Germany (some transparency here – I was the ringside commentator for that match, just like I’ll be doing the same this weekend in Hamburg).

Zakhozhyi had won the European heavyweight title some seven months before when he stopped Granit Shala in two rounds in Berlin. At 6’9” and usually weighing somewhere around 250lbs, the Ukrainian seemed to have as good a chance at any moving towards world-title contention.

(Universum Boxing)

It had been in Germany, too, that Zakhozhyi had largely spent his career ticking around the various cards and cities, fighting a mix of gatekeepers (Evgenios Lazaridis, Irineu Beato Costa Junior) and one former contender (Kevin Johnson).

But then came Heidelberg, and Zakhozhyi came unstuck. He looked almost disinterested in the ring, as if the removal of his original opponent, Arnold Gjergjaj, had deflated him a little. It was possible that someone around him had given the reassurance that Xhoxhaj was even less of a threat. And if so, that thought was one that Zakhozhyi had taken a little too close to his heart.

It would have been an easy, lazy prediction to make. Xhoxhaj’s record had been built largely in Switzerland, where the big stars almost never visit. And the only name on his record with any faint recognition on it was that of Tamas Lodi, whom Lawrence Okolie stopped in three rounds in 2019.

Xhoxhaj started appearing on German cards regularly in 2023, although his second fight here was a draw against the under-sized Milosav Savic. He kept on then, working through fighters whose records resembled that of see-saws, almost the same on both sides: Anton Sjomkin, 14-17-1; Semir Dautovic, 6-2-2; Vaclav Trojacek, 6-4-1.

But once Gjergjaj was out, Xhoxhaj came in at last minute.

And he outworked Zakhozhyi that night in Heidelberg. He went down in the second round from a left hook, but then he got up and kept on pushing, and he slung long, looping right hands that landed again and again on the Ukrainian and stung him here and there.

And then the Ukrainian took one in the tenth round, and he went down then, seemingly in sections. Getting back to his feet, beyond tired and moving into exhausted, Zakhozhyi knew in the last two rounds that he had lost.

Xhoxhaj was champion of Europe. And it was a title that meant something, even if no one was quite sure what it meant.

And, coming this Saturday, Xhoxhaj defends against Mourad Aliev, 13-0 (10), another oversized man with a better background for a whom an easy and lazy prediction would be that he will work through him.