By Michael Collins: As the WBO cruiserweight champion Marco Huck (34-1, 25 KO’s) has proven he’s one of the best fighters in the division in the last two years through eight title defenses. Yeah, pretty much the entire world thinks Huck deserved to lose to #1 ranked contender Denis Lebedev in December 2010, but hey, it’s Germany and when you’re the champion and fighting at home, that counts for a lot.
Huck will be moving up in weight on February 25th to fight WBA World heavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin (23-0, 16 KO’s) next month at the Porsche Arena in Stuttgard, Germany. Huck has been saying for a long time now that he’s go the talent to beat the best heavyweights in the division, so now he gets the chance to prove it against the 32-year-old Povetkin.
Although Povetkin isn’t the best heavyweight in the division, he’s in the top five in the division and plenty good enough to cause a lot of problems for Huck if he doesn’t raise his game for the fight. Huck struggled against a smaller 5’11” Lebedev in 2010, but Povetkin is bigger than Lebedev and throws more punches.
Work rate is the killer for Huck. He fights well against guys that let him lead and really struggles when he has to fight someone that puts pressure on him the way that Lebedev did. Where Lebedev made a mistake was by constantly throwing punches.
In Huck’s loss to Steve Cunningham in December 2007, Cunningham made it a point of throwing combinations in a sustained manner that really took a lot out of Huck and caused him to wear down and eventually get stopped. This is what Povetkin will have to do if he wants to make it an easy night. He can’t let Huck fight with rest breaks for him to catch his breath and regroup. He’s basically a slugger in the same mold as Arthur Abraham. He does well if you give him time to recover from his all out assaults.