Huck vs. Godfrey on August 21

By Boxing News - 06/13/2010 - Comments

By Jim Dower: World Boxing Organization (WBO) cruiserweight champion Marco Huck (29-1, 22 KO’s) will continue with his trend of making boring title defenses when he fights American Matt Godfrey (20-1, 10 KO’s) on August 21st, at the Massenhalle, Erfurt, Thuringen, Germany.

This will be the 25-year-old Huck’s 4th title defense of his WBO title and it’s unfortunate that Huck couldn’t find a more interesting opponent than Godfrey to fight, especially when Huck’s last two title defenses against Brian Minto and Adam Richards have been painfully one-sided fights before the first punch was ever thrown.

The Huck-Godfrey fight figures to be just as one-sided as those fights and maybe more so, because Godfrey, 29, has little power and doesn’t have the hand speed or the movement to compensate for his lack of punching power. The fight that boxing fans would like to see, though, is a unification bout between Huck and IBF cruiserweight champion Steve Cunningham, a fighter who previously stopped Huck in the 12th round three years ago in 2007, when Huck was a young 22-years-old.

Huck has matured a lot since then, and has become stronger and less of a wild man in the ring like he was back then. Huck has reeled off 10 straight wins, including eight of them by knockout, since the bitter loss to Cunningham. He’s clearly gotten a lot better and beaten top fighters like Victor Emilio Ramirez and Ola Afolabi in the past year.

But recently, Huck has been taking it easy, fighting guys like Minto and Richards and easily beating them in one-sided fights. A bout against Godfrey will likely be in line with those mismatches because Godfrey is kind of thick in the middle, doesn’t move well and can’t punch. Basically, he’s going to be a sitting duck all night for Huck’s big punchers, although it won’t be a fight that likely lasts for long. I’m guessing this fight goes four or five rounds before Huck lands something big enough to send Godfrey down for the count.

Godfrey has taken a lot of punishment in the last three years in fights against Derrick Brown, Rudolf Kraj, Emmanuel Nwodo and Michael Simms. Godfrey won all but the fight against Kraj. However, Godfrey didn’t look good in most of those fights and his last fight against Simms, a 10 round split decision in September 2009, was a close call for Godfrey.

Huck’s promotional company, Sauerland Events, are thinking about putting on a cruiserweight tournament much like the Super Six tournament for the super middleweight division. This is why we may not see Huck in unification bouts with Cunningham or the WBC cruiserweight champion Krzysztof Wlodarczyk any time soon, even though boxing fans would surely be interested in seeing these fights.



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