By Allan Fox: The clash between WBA World heavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin (23-0, 16 KOs) and challenger Marco Huck (34-1, 25 KO’s) is about two weeks away for their February 25th fight at the Porsche-Arena, Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

Povetkin, 32, has got a real tough fight on his hands with the younger, stronger and highly popular Huck. Povetkin, 6’2” 229lbs, is the slightly bigger guy, and the one with the better amateur credentials. However, Huck, 27, has made great strides since turning pro 2004 and is now perhaps the No.2 or 3 fighter in the cruiserweight division, behind Denis Lebedev and Yoan Pablo Hernandez.

You can probably make a strong argument that Steve Cunningham should be ranked above Huck as well, since he stopped him in the 12th round in 2007 and Huck never did anything to try and avenge the defeat. But none of that means anything in this fight, because Povetkin isn’t a cruiserweight and he’s a badly flawed heavyweight.

For Povetkin to beat Huck on February 25th, he’s going to have to make Huck fight hard and get involved with a lot of exchanges. Huck likes to fight in brief spurts. In between that, he tends to do a lot of resting before coming back for another charge. His style is very primitive but effective because of his raw power.

Huck has problems with fighters that use their jab and move a little. Luckily for him, most of the cruiserweights he’s faced have been dreadfully mediocre. The cruiserweight division is filled with a lot of guys that would be 2nd and 3rd tier at light heavyweight and super middleweight, but they all come together at cruiserweight and round out the top 15.

Huck has been able to flourish in this weak environment. Povetkin obviously knows about Huck’s defects, but he’s going to have to really take the fight to him if he wants to get this win, because Huck can win this fight even with a low work rate.

We saw that in his fight against Lebdeev, where Huck was outworked in every round of the fight, but still ended up winning the fight the end. Povetkin needs to realize that he’s the one that will be the challenger on February 25th, not Huck. He’s facing one of Germany’s stars and they’re not going to let Huck get beaten unless Povetkin really puts it on him in this fight.