Lee McAllister gets surprise European title tilt

Aberdeen's favourite boxing son, Lee McAllister, has landed a surprise shot at the European light-welterweight title.

He'll face champion Denis Shafikov in a voluntary defence, thought to be in McAllister's home city on February 11th.

Tommy Gilmour promotes.

The 26 year-old Russian is unbeaten, carrying a record of 27-0-1, his draw being against fellow unbeaten Italian Brunet Zamora in October 2010. Zamora then went on to draw against Alberto Mosquera in a match for one of the WBA's interim straps which indicates a decent form line. It could be said that Shafikov found himself in the right place at the right time in September when he beat veteran Giuseppe Lauri for the vacant EBU title when the Italian retired after the eighth round.

As for McAllister, he seems to have been around for ages but is still only 29 with a record of 34-2. His first loss came as long ago as 2003 when he lost to Dean Hickman. He then went on a long unbeaten run as he was very carefully matched whilst packing out Aberdeen's Beach Ballroom.  If you need an indication of how insane boxing is these days, it's that McAllister is often referred to in the papers as a 'two weight world champion' having won the WBU belts at lightweight and light-welter.

John Murray put this into perspective in 2009 when he stopped him in the eighth round of a one-sided contest for the British lightweight title.

To be fair to McAllister, he's since won the Commonwealth titles at both 135lbs and 140lbs and is the current holder of the latter belt.

Seeing as the Granite City hero was packing out home venues boxing journeymen, it should be a great atmosphere when McAllister has the biggest fight of his career thus far.

Pictured - McAllister with BoxRec News legend Eric Armit