By Jim Dower: WBO cruiserweight champion Marco Huck (34-1, 25 KO’s stopped a badly overmatched #15 ranked WBO contender Rogelio Rossi (17-3-1, 11 KO’s) by a 6th round TKO on Saturday night at the Arena, Ludwigsburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
Huck knocked the tall 6’4″ Rossi down four times in the fight – once in the 2nd, two times in the 5th and a final time in the 6th. Huck, who sometimes fights dirty, also knocked Rossi down after the round had ended in the 4th. The final knockdown was from a brutal right hand that sent Rossi down back first where he landed and never even braced his fall. He was perfectly still after the knockdown, causing the referee to immediately halt the fight.
In the end, Huck had too much power for the slender and stork-like Rossi. Oddly enough, this was Huck’s second consecutive fight against a bottom 15 ranked contender. Hopefully, Huck will step it up against his number #1 contender in his next fight because it would be disappointing to see Huck face yet another bottom 15 ranked contender for a third straight fight. Huck really needs to face better opposition than this. A year ago, he won a controversial 12 round split decision over his number #1 challenger Denis Lebedev in a fight that many boxing fans saw Lebedev winning. Huck hasn’t been in any hurry of facing Lebedev again.
In early action on the card, heavyweight contender Kubrat Pulev (14-0, 6 KO’s) defeated American Travis Walker (38-7-1, 30 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision.
The final judges’ scores were 119-109, 118-109, and 117-110. Pulev landed a lot of shots but lacked the power to get Walker out of there. Pulev was hit with a lot of hard shots from Walker and took them well, but he was unable to find the same kind of power to get Walker out of there.
Although listed at 6’4 1/2″, Pulev looked a lot shorter than the 6’4 1/2″ Walker, which makes you question the height listed for Bulgarian. Overall, it wasn’t an especially impressive performance from Pulev, as he doesn’t have the power to compete with the Klitschkos and would likely have problems against the better contenders in the division.
In other action on the card, Enad Licina (21-3, 11 KO’s) defeated little known Hari Miles (6-4, 2 KO’s) by an eight round unanimous decision. The judges scores were 78-74, 79-73 and 79-73.
Undefeated Marcos Nadar (13-0, 2 KO’s) defeated Lorenzo Cosseddu (27-7-5, 3 KO’s) by an eight round decision.
Undefeated middleweight contender Dominik Britsch (26-0, 9 KO’s) defeated journeyman Billy Lyell (24-10, 5 KO’s) by a controversial 12 round majority decision. Britsch, who entered the ring with clicked back hair in the style of 50s crooner Elvis Presley, looked like a terrible sight by the 12th round, as Lyell really took the fight to him and appeared to have done enough to get the win. However, the judges scored it 114-114, 117-111 and 116-113. I had Lyell winning by a couple of rounds. But regardless, the narrow win for Britsch, who is ranked #9 by the IBF, showed that he doesn’t have the power or the skills to compete at middleweight. If Britsch has to struggle to beat 2nd tier fighters like Lyell, then his chances of ever winning a title or slim and none. This was the best opponent of Britsch’s career and he looked horrible throughout.
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