Huck defeats Arslan in controversial decision

By Jim Dower: WBO cruiserweight champion Marco Huck (35-2-1, 25 KO’s) retained his World Boxing Organization title tonight with a controversial 12 round decision over 42-year-old Firat Arslan (32-6-2, 21 KO’s) on Saturday night at the Gerry Weber Stadium, Halle, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. The final judges’ scores were 115-113, 115-113, 117-111.

Huck took a real beating in the fight, getting hammered in every round by huge uppercuts from the much superior inside fighter Arslan. The uppercut shots would snap Huck’s head each time they’d land cleanly. Huck threw more punches but most of his shots were picked off on the gloves of Arslan.

In the second half of the fight, Huck had better success throwing to the body. However, Arslan never stopped coming forward and continued to land big uppercuts in each every round.

The fight really boiled down to whether the judges were more impressed with Huck’s better work rate or the cleaner landing shots from Arslan. In the end it was clear that the judges were more impressed with the higher work rate from Huck despite the fact that they were getting picked off on the gloves.

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Other boxing results on the card:

Dustin Dirks UD 12 Cleiton Conceicao
Edmund Gerber UD 8 Darnell Wilson
Tyron Zeuge UD 6 Matingu Kindele
Robert Woge TKO 5 Serhiy Demchenko
David Graf UD 8 Blanchard Kalambay
Enrico Koelling UD 6 Ivan Maslov