By Eric Thomas: Marco Huck (34-2, 25 KO’s) gave it a good try but he came up short on Saturday night against WBA World heavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin (24-0, 16 KO’s) in losing by a 12 round majority decision at the Porsche-Arena, in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

The judges scored it 114-114, 116-113 and 116-112. I was in agreement with the 116-112 score for Povetkin. Huck fought hard but didn’t really get his act together until the 5th round after struggling to make consistent contact with Povetkin. Huck did land a series of right hands in the 4th round during one flurry, but most of the shots missed wide of the mark and he was badly out-landed in that round and the first three rounds as well.

Hucks’s problem during the fight was that he didn’t throw enough punches and when he did throw them, it was often badly telegraphed right hands that Povetkin was able to get out of the way of. Huck did land a number of good right hands in every rounds, but unfortunately there weren’t enough of them and many of them were rabbit punches. I can’t believe how many rabbit punches I saw Huck attempt and land in the fight. It was a high number and the referee did a poor job of keeping him from throwing them by failing to take points off. Huck also had a bad habit of pushing down on the head of Povetkin in order to hit him when he was bent over. That, too, should have been penalized.

The other fouls I saw from Huck were things like holding and hitting, lacing and pushing following by a right hand. It all looked pretty primitive and that likely hurt him in this fight, because Povetkin’s form was a lot better than Huck’s. Granted, Povetkin looked to be exhausted in many of the second half rounds, but he was still able to outwork Huck in most of the rounds and/or make him miss with his telegraphed right hands. In the 11th round, Povetkin really punished Huck right combinations, swelling his right eye up badly during the round. After the bell sounded, Povetkin got in a hard shot, but Huck retaliated landing a big right of his own.

Huck fought well in the 6th round, landing some nice right hands. However, at the end of the round, Povetkin hit Huck with a big right hand that appeared to hurt him as the bell sounded to end the round. At one point, Huck threw a rabbit shot and then came back to grab Povetkin’s head and force it down to try and hit him. Huck continued to fight dirty in the 7th, landing some rabbit shots and pushing down on Povetkin’s head. The referee gave Huck a warning for this. I saw Huck winning this round despite his fouling.

Povetkin dominated the 8th round with his combinations and high workrate. However, Huck came back in the 9th round and landed some nice right hands. Huck also threw and landed at least two right hand rabbit shots.

Povetkin came storming back in the 10th and 11th rounds to land more shots and fight well. Huck was still trying to load up with right hands, but was missing too much.

In the 12th round, Huck fought really well, landing his big right hands and fought a relatively clean round aside from one rabbit shot and an incident were Huck tried to force Povetkin’s head down.

In other fights on the card:

Dominik Britsch D 12 Roberto Santos
Marcos Nader UD 10 Baker Barakat
Edmund Gerber RTD 5 Oleksiy Mazikin
Robert Woge TKO 7 Roberto Cocco
Jack Culcay TKO 7 Salvatore Annunziata