Huck defeats Nakash, Helenius KOs Peter!

By Boxing News - 04/02/2011 - Comments

Image: Huck defeats Nakash, Helenius KOs Peter!By Jim Dower: Having looked poor in his last fight in winning a questionable 12 round decision over #1 contender Denis Lebedev, WBO cruiserweight champion Marco Huck (32-1, 23 KO’s) selected a smaller, lower ranked opponent in #10 ranked WBO contender Ran Nakash (25-1, 18 KO’s) and was able to beat him without any problems by a 12 round unanimous decision on Saturday night at the Gerry Weber Stadium, Halle, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.

The final judges’ scores were a 118-110, 118-110, and 116-112. It wasn’t the fight that boxing fans wanted to see, because many of them want to see Huck give Lebedev a rematch. Instead of that fight fans had to settle for watching Huck beat up on the 32-year-old Nakash for 12 rounds in a mostly one-sided fight. Nakash constantly came forward, but because of his lack of height and reach, he was getting hit with jabs and power shots all night while coming forward. Huck had too much size and power for Nakash.

In action on the undercard, unbeaten heavyweight contender Robert Helenius (15-0, 10 Kos) stopped former WBC heavyweight champion Samuel Peter (34-5, 27 KO’s) by a 9th round stoppage. Helenius, 6’6”, had problems with Peter early in the fight in the first five rounds. However, Peter, who came into the fight weighing a flabby 259 lbs, ran out of gas after the 5th and began to take a lot of punishment from the younger, taller and much fitter Helenius.

Peter continued to come forward trying to land big shots and pressure Helenius. However, Peter began to get hit more and more as the fight progressed past the 6h. In the 9th round, Helenius knocked Peter to the canvas with a left to the head. After Peter got up, Helenius stormed after him, landing a flurry of shots to knock Peter down for a second and final time.

This was a bad loss for Peter, one that he can ill afford. It was Peter’s second consecutive knockout defeat and his fourth loss in the past three years. It’s one thing losing to fighters like Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko, but another thing altogether to get beat by a guy like Helenius, who isn’t in the same class as the Klitschko brothers.

The win keeps Helenius, ranked #7 IBF, #7 WBO and #11 WBA, moving forward. He’s a good fighter but he doesn’t have the power or the same kind of ring generalship as the Klitschkos. After this win there is going to be mounting pressure to stage a fight between Helenius and the Klitschkos. The problem is Helenius just isn’t ready. He’ll perhaps do better than the guys that the Klitschkos have been destroying in the past three years, but probably not much better.

Other bouts on the same card:

Artur Hein SD 12 Tony Averlant
Dominik Britsch UD 8 Jozsef Matolcsi
Sergej Rozvadovskij TKO 7 Thomas Ulrich
David Graf TKO 1 Olegs Lopajevs
Dustin Dirks TKO 6 Roberto Cocco



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