By Jim Dower: Marco Huck (40-3-1, 27 KOs) will be fighting #1 WBC Mairis Briedis (21-0, 18 KOs) this Saturday night for the interim WBC cruiserweight title on April in Dortmund, Germany. Both guys are 32, but Briedis has a lot less miles on the clock compared to Huck, who has been fighting as a pro for 13 years. Huck is a former WBO cruiserweight champion. He lost his WBO title to Krzysztof Glowacki by an 11th round knockout in September 2015. Huck has won his last two fights since then against Ola Afolabi and Dmytro Kucher.
The winner of the Huck-Briedis fight could be elevated to the full WBC cruiserweight champion as soon as the current champion Tony Bellew decides what he’s going to do with his title. It’s expected that he’ll vacate the belt so that he can look for a payday fight against one of the top heavyweights.
The World Boxing Council was kind enough to let Bellew freeze his WBC title while he moved up to heavyweight for a payday fight against David Haye. Bellew was injured in the fight, and he could be out of action until December. It’s unclear why the WBC hasn’t given Bellew the status of ‘Champion in Recess’ the way they sometimes do with their injured champions.
Huck suffered a hand injury in his last fight against Kucher last November. the injury is finally healed, and he’s ready to test it out against Briedis.
“The pain was hard during the fight in November,” Huck said via Fight News. “But of course I never thought to give up. Because of the long time being professional with my former trainer Ulli Wegner I have another sense of pain than the most other humans.”
This is going to be a hard fight for Huck, because Briedis is a big puncher with a lot of skills. Huck likes to slug with his opponents in flurries. If he does that a lot against Briedis, he could be asking for trouble. Huck needs to use a little more finesse for this fight because he might run into something big. Huck has only been stopped twice in his long career, but it could happen again if he leaves himself open against Briedis. This is easily the toughest opponent for Huck since his loss to Glowacki. Kucher isn’t the puncher than Briedis is, and neither is Afolabi.
Huck, 6’2”, won’t have much of a size advantage over the 6’1” Briedis, as he’s about the same height and he likes to stand in the pocket and slug as well. Briedis has knocked out his last 7 opponents since 2015. Huck is going to be taking a big risk if he tries to trade with him the way he typically does with his opposition.
Briedis stopped Simon Vallily in the 3rd round. In Briedis’ fights before that, he defeated top contender Olanrewaju Durodola by a 9th round knockout in 2016. This was a big win for Briedis. Perhaps the best win of Briedis’ 8-year pro career came against heavyweight Manuel Charr in 2015. Charr came into the fight as a favorite in the minds of many boxing fans, but Briedis’ stopped in the 5th round with a highlight reel knockout. Charr was knocked out.
Huck is going to need to be more disciplined on Saturday than he normally is in his fights, because he tries to attack Briedis ith a flurry of punches, he could run into something big that he can’t handle. Huck needs to realize that he’s taking on a highly skilled fighter with boxing skills and punching power.
“I don’t know any pain. But it will be not the same thing with my opponent!” said Huck.