In yet another excellent Cruiserweight title bout Marco Huck (36-2-1, 25) successfully defended his WBO title as he defeated Ola Afolabi (19-3-4, 9) via a very tight decision (despite the score card of one judge who had the fight scored as a dominant victory).
The fight started well for Afolabi who clearly seemed to take the opening round with his crisper, cleaner punching though it didn't take long for Huck to start to force himself in to the fight and start to fight back with his challenger who was conservative with his own shots. With the crowds cheering every time Huck threw shots early on it was clear who was the fan favourite and this was seemingly helping him just do enough to steal the earlier rounds.
In the middle rounds the action was very even with Afolabi landing some very crisp shots but Huck throwing the more eye catching shots (whether they landed clean, or at all was up for debate) which clearly seemed to catch the judges attention. It was the flurries of Huck that was the more exciting work but also the less technically effective.
With the action to-ing and fro-ing well it just appeared that Huck was just managing to bag the rounds through the middle with his attractive work. This changed however in the later rounds as a tiring Huck was forced on to the back foot by Afolabi who was much busier than he had been in the middle section of the bout and rounds 9, 10 and 11 all seemed very clearly in favour of the challenger as Huck started to feel the ill effects of the body attack that Afolabi has used through out.
Round 10 had been the round of the right as both men managed to land bombs, even though Afolabi seemed to land significantly more of them, this however changed in the final round as both men tagged the other in the final round. It was in the final round that Afolabi was clearly hurt and staggered badly for the first time but both men were too tired to really tear down the other and both men managed to make their way to the final bell.
After the bell only one man celebrated with Huck climbing the ring posts and holding his arms up whilst Afolabi looked dejected, as if he'd known that he didn't do enough with the fight being in Germany. This turned out to just be the case as Huck took a majority decision by scores of 114-114, 115-113 and the frankly ridiculous 117-111.
Showing posts with label Marco Huck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marco Huck. Show all posts
Saturday, 8 June 2013
Saturday, 3 November 2012
Marco Huck v Firat Arslan
The hugely popular Marco Huck (?-?) successfully defended his WBO Cruiserweight title for the 10th time as he out-pointed veteran Firat Arslan (?-?) in a thoroughly engaging 12 round war that really could have gone either way.
Surprisingly it was the 42 year old challenger, Firat Arslan that really forced the bout through out as he rushed at Huck to start every round and really went at the champion in every round. Arslan's great work took it's toll on Huck from the off as he busted Huck's nose in the second round and appeared to win almost all of the early rounds with his relentless pressure.
Thankfully for Huck he started to eventually get going as he began to generate some distance with which he could work from. At a distance Huck looked a different fighter and he really started to target Arslan's body, trying to drain the tank of the challenger who was relentless in his forward march. Although Huck's attacks were much less frequent than Arslan's they certainly seemed to contain the harder shots and in the middle section of the bout he seemed to take a slight advantage as he brought the score cards closer together.
In the latter rounds we were treat to some real tit-for-tat moments as each man took it in turns to attack. One minute Arslan would force Huck on to the ropes and land long combinations of shots, targeting the head of Huck with uppercuts, the next minute Huck was dominating with his body assault forcing Arslan on to the back foot. This left us with a number of rounds which were razor thin and really, really hard to split the fighters on.
When it came to the cards it obvious that it was close and the first two cards showed as much with scores of 115-113, however the third card, 117-111 really didn't reflect the nature of the bout. Thankfully for Huck all 3 were in his favour, however a really strong case could be made for Arslan winning the bout.
For Arslan this proves there is a lot more left in the old dog than any of us suspected. He really could go in with almost any Cruiserweight and hold his own and it sort of suggests that his performance against Alexander Alexeev wasn't all to do with Alexseev fighting the wrong fight.
For Huck however it could have been a case that he looked past Arslan with a lot of talk about a bout with Wladimir Klitschko...however it could also be a case that the hard fights are catching up with Huck. Huck didn't look his-self, of course Arslan played a part in that but hard fights with both Alexander Povetkin and Ola Afolabi already this year won't have helped. We don't often see championship level fighters fighting 36 hard, competitive rounds in a year and that's what Huck has done in 2012.
Huck's team needs to give 6-9 months off, let him recharge his batteries, let him recover from these wars, then look at moving to Heavyweight. Don't let Huck spar for the next few months, don't let him do anything more than pad work in the ring just to keep him sharp, otherwise the exciting Capt'n may well be done before he turns 30.
Surprisingly it was the 42 year old challenger, Firat Arslan that really forced the bout through out as he rushed at Huck to start every round and really went at the champion in every round. Arslan's great work took it's toll on Huck from the off as he busted Huck's nose in the second round and appeared to win almost all of the early rounds with his relentless pressure.
Thankfully for Huck he started to eventually get going as he began to generate some distance with which he could work from. At a distance Huck looked a different fighter and he really started to target Arslan's body, trying to drain the tank of the challenger who was relentless in his forward march. Although Huck's attacks were much less frequent than Arslan's they certainly seemed to contain the harder shots and in the middle section of the bout he seemed to take a slight advantage as he brought the score cards closer together.
In the latter rounds we were treat to some real tit-for-tat moments as each man took it in turns to attack. One minute Arslan would force Huck on to the ropes and land long combinations of shots, targeting the head of Huck with uppercuts, the next minute Huck was dominating with his body assault forcing Arslan on to the back foot. This left us with a number of rounds which were razor thin and really, really hard to split the fighters on.
When it came to the cards it obvious that it was close and the first two cards showed as much with scores of 115-113, however the third card, 117-111 really didn't reflect the nature of the bout. Thankfully for Huck all 3 were in his favour, however a really strong case could be made for Arslan winning the bout.
For Arslan this proves there is a lot more left in the old dog than any of us suspected. He really could go in with almost any Cruiserweight and hold his own and it sort of suggests that his performance against Alexander Alexeev wasn't all to do with Alexseev fighting the wrong fight.
For Huck however it could have been a case that he looked past Arslan with a lot of talk about a bout with Wladimir Klitschko...however it could also be a case that the hard fights are catching up with Huck. Huck didn't look his-self, of course Arslan played a part in that but hard fights with both Alexander Povetkin and Ola Afolabi already this year won't have helped. We don't often see championship level fighters fighting 36 hard, competitive rounds in a year and that's what Huck has done in 2012.
Huck's team needs to give 6-9 months off, let him recharge his batteries, let him recover from these wars, then look at moving to Heavyweight. Don't let Huck spar for the next few months, don't let him do anything more than pad work in the ring just to keep him sharp, otherwise the exciting Capt'n may well be done before he turns 30.
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