By Jim Dower: Teddy Atlas won’t be training WBA World heavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin (23-0, 16 KO’s) for his February 25th title defense against Marco Huck (34-1, 25 KO’s) at the Porsche Arena in Stuttgart, Germany.

Atlas won’t be able to make the fight in Germany due to his main job as an ESPN2 Friday Night Fights analyst, and that’s a vacancy in the trainer position that’s been filled by Alexander Zimin. None the less, Atlas sees Povetkin as having too much size and skill for the shorter, smaller and less technically skilled Huck.

Atlas told thesweetscience.com “Sasha will kill this guy [Huck]. He’s too big. He hits too hard.”

In truth, Povetkin isn’t that much bigger than Huck and probably doesn’t have his power. However, Povtkin is used to fighting bigger guys and he will have the greater ring expertise in this fight and that could be all he needs to carry himself to victory on 2/25. Huck hasn’t been in a real fight since he won a questionable 12 round decision against Denis Lebedev in December 2010. Huck’s promoters decided not to put Huck back in with Lebedev to clear up the controversy about his win, and instead has taken on three consecutive lower ranked soft touches in Ran Nakash, Hugo Hernan Garay and Rogelio Omar Rossi.

Povetkin needs a win over Huck to get a good paying unification bout against one of the Klitschkos in the future. But first he’ll have to defend his title against former WBC heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman, as he’s the mandatory challenger and must come next. Rahman is less of a worry due to his age, 38, and his lack of quality fights in recent years. The real test for Povetkin is to get past the popular Huck, who will have the crowd behind him and will likely win any rounds that are considered close.

Huck likely won’t need to land nearly as many shots in order to win due to his better power and the crowd cheering with every shot he throws. The judges being human will likely be influenced by the crowd noise and it will make it tough on Povetkin unless he does remarkably well. Both fighters are promoted by Sauerland but Huck is the German favorite in this fight.