WBO cruiserweight champion Marco Huck (37-2-1, 26 KOs) will be looking to tie former WBO cruiserweight champion Johnny Nelson’s record for the most title defenses at 13 tonight in Huck’s fight against #12 WBO Mirko Larghetti (21-0, 13 KOs) at the Gerry Weber Stadium, Halle, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.
Huck, 29, is virtually guaranteed to tie and eventually break the record because Larghetti is someone who is so far out of his league in this fight that it’s hardly even worth mentioning. Huck is clearly going to win this fight unless he suffers some kind of injury.
Yeah, the record would mean a lot more if Huck were fighting really good opposition like Thabisio Mchunu, Rakhim Chakhkiev or Denis Lebedev, but since Huck’s promoters at Sauerland aren’t matching Huck against those dangerous opponents, you have to settle for watching Huck destroy a guy with an inflated record in Larghetti.
Nelson, 47, doesn’t seem all that impressed with Huck as a fighter, as he thinks he would have beaten him during his reign as the WBO champion. Nelson also thinks he could beat Huck now if he were to get in shape. That’s obviously hard to believe considering Nelson’s advanced age and his time away from the sport.
To be sure, IBF/WBA light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins is older than Nelson at 49, but then again Hopkins didn’t walk away from the sport for 9 years the way that Nelson did. That’s just too much time that Nelson has been out of the sport for him to be able to come back and beat a guy like Huck.
Nelson said “In my prime Huck wouldn’t have stood a chance, without a doubt the fight wouldn’t have gone the distance. Even now, a decade later, I know I could beat him. If the interest is there I would seriously consider coming out of retirement to defend my record. I would just need six months to sharpen up and I would be ready.”
I’d have to say that the interest in a Huck vs. Nelson fight is probably about zero. Nelson has been out of the sport for too long, and the newer fans have no clue who he is.
Larghetti’s only chance of winning this fight is if he gets on his bike, uses his jab to pick Huck off, and tie him up when he comes in close to land his power shots.
Huck tends to throw a lot of rabbit shots when his opponents tie him up, so you can probably expect to see a fair amount of those kinds of punches from Huck tonight whenever he gets close to Larghetti. Hopefully there’s a referee working the fight that actually does his job. It would be a shame if Huck knocks Larghetti out with a punch to the back of the head.
Hopefully, Huck steps it up after this fight and starts fighting some good opposition. He should have lost to Ola Afolabi in their fight in 2012 in a fight that Huck was given a draw despite being totally dominated in the first 6 rounds. He’s fought Afolbai and Firat Arslan recently, but it’s really time for Huck to start facing other opposition like Mchunu, Lebedev or Chakhkiev.
