Last week, we learnt that European cruiserweight champion Leonardo Mosquea was injured and had to pull out of his fight with Mateusz Masternak on October 4.

Since then, the EBU have gone down their rankings and it has emerged today that Masternak (49-6, 32 knockouts) would instead face German veteran Artur Mann (22-5, 13 KOs) for the vacant title on the same date on a Knockout Promotions show in Zakopane.

Masternak has been a professional since 2006. The Polish fighter won his first 30 fights and claimed the aforementioned European title, but lost it in a 11th-round stoppage defeat by future WBC titleholder Grigory Drozd.

Afterwards, he came unstuck in 12-round losses to Youri Kalenga and another future cruiserweight champion in Tony Bellew.

However, he bested former unified cruiserweight kingpin Jean-Marc Mormeck in a 10-round split decision before stopping Kalenga after six rounds of their rematch. A narrow competitive defeat by former two-time champion Yuniel Dorticos saw him exit the World Boxing Super Series in the opening round, back during the division's 2018-19 season.

The 38-year-old contender rebounded with six consecutive victories to earn a shot at then-WBO titleholder Chris Billam-Smith. Although he was leading on two of the scorecards after seven rounds, he was stopped with a broken rib in the eighth. The 38-year-old has since returned with two victories in 2024 - most recently a points nod over Floyd Masson.

Meanwhile, Mann has been a punching for pay for a decade. The Kazakhstan-born fighter, who is based out of Germany, won his first 15 fights.

However, his undefeated record ended at the fists of Kevin Lerena in four rounds in South Africa in March 2019. After bouncing back with two lower-level wins, he stepped up but was easily stopped by then Ring and IBF titlist Mairis Briedis in three rounds.

The 34-year-old did score a win over Nikodem Jezewski (UD 10) in Poland but since then when he's fought better competition he's come up short going 3-3 in his last six, losing to Evgeny Tishchenko (UD 10), Muslim Gadzhimagomedov (RTD 8) and faded former unified light heavyweight titlist Sergey Kovalev (TKO 7) on April 18.