Povetkin vs. Rahman on July 14th in Germany

By Boxing News - 03/29/2012 - Comments

Image: Povetkin vs. Rahman on July 14th in GermanyBy Sean McDaniel: WBA World heavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin (24-0, 16 KO’s) will be making his third defense of his World Boxing Association title on July 14th against 39-year-old former IBF/WBC heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman (50-7-2, 41 KO’s) at a still to be determined venue in Germany, according to Dan Rafael. Povetkin, 32, recently barely got past cruiserweight challenger Marco Huck month, beating him by a 12 round majority decision in Germany. Povetkin came into that fight a little heavy and that really made the fight a lot harder than it should have been.

Povetkin was hit with an awful lot of rabbit punches in that fight and the referee for some reason never got around to taking any points away from Huck. Povetkin did most of the better work in the fight, but had problems with Huck’s occasional furious assaults where he’d come charging at Povetkin throwing wild clubbing right hands that often missed badly. However, Huck was the much harder puncher of the two and his attacks energized the pro-Huck crowd and that made for an exciting fight.

Povetkin doesn’t have much choice in the matter in regards to his title defense against Rahman. He’s the mandatory challenger and Povetkin has to face him or else his title will be stripped from him by the WBC. Rahman hasn’t done a whole lot in the past four years since being blown out by IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko in a 7th round TKO loss in December 2008. Rahman has won his last five fights since then but he’s decided to take the easy path to a heavyweight world title shot by fighting only B level fighters – Clinton Boldrige (9-15-1), Shannon Miller (16-4), Damon Reed (46-13), Marcus McGee (22-17) and Galen Brown (35-16-1). A younger Rahman would be a real theat to Povetkin.

It might even be a mismatch due to Rahman’s power. But he’s older now and has slowed down. I can’t remember the last Rahman looked good. It would have to be way back in 2005 when he beat Monte Barrett by a lopsided 12 round decision.

Povetkin wins this fight unless Rahman can land something big. Povetkin has a good chin, though, so it’s going to take more than one big shot from Rahman if he wants to try and take Povetkin out.



Comments are closed.