by James Slater – Serbian-born Marco Huck of Germany, the most active of current world champions, is set to return to action on August 21st. Once again fighting in Germany, the scene of all but two of the 25-year-old’s pro fights, Huck will meet an opponent to be named shortly. The reigning WBO cruiserweight champion, fresh off his May stoppage of former heavyweight Brian “The Beast” Minto, will be making the fourth defence of his belt and he will be having his fifth fight inside the last 12-months. That’s some workrate.
It will be interesting to see who “Kap’n'” Huck fights in August and fans will be hoping that whoever it is that challenges him will be a natural, and highly-ranked 200-pounder.. Minto was an okay challenger for the peaking Huck, but he was fighting out of his weight class. Still, whoever he fights, it’s tough to be, well, tough on Huck when he’s so active.
Soon to fight are cruiserweight contenders Alexander Alexeev and Denis Lebedev, in a WBO 200-pound eliminator, so somewhere down the line one of these guys will wind up facing Huck, and either guy should give the WBO boss a hard challenge. Another fight that could also happen down the road, and which makes perfect sense, is a rematch between Huck and the only man to have beaten him; new, and now two-time, IBF cruiser champ Steve “USS” Cunningham.
Cunningham stopped a still-green Huck in the 12th and final round of good fight back in December of 2007 in a defence that came in his first reign as IBF ruler. Ever since, Huck, who had just turned 23 at the time, has vowed revenge. Now that both men have the same promotional outfit with the Sauerlands promoting them, you would think the fight would be easy enough to make. Let’s hope so. One of the better match-ups that could be made in the interesting cruiserweight division of today, Cunningham-Huck II could be a great night.
Providing Huck gets past whoever it is he will be facing in August, and after Cunningham has maybe made a first defence of his second reign as champ, the two could conceivably get it on either later this year or early next.
Speaking of Sauerland, Wilfried to be exact, Huck will be travelling to Canastota, New York with the promoter this week, to witness him being inducted into The International Boxing Hall of Fame. Fightnews.com reports that Huck, 29-1(22) is looking forward to the trip, and of mingling with all the great fighters he will meet there.
Speaking to Fightnews about his next fight, Huck had the following comments:
“I look forward to returning to action,” he said. “I don’t care who I fight. As the world champion, there are no easy tasks for me. I will defeat anybody my team picks for me.”
But would Huck defeat Cunningham in a rematch when and if his team picks “USS” for him?