Fight Preview: Marco Huck v. Ola Afolabi
by Scott Christ on Dec 5, 2009 1:06 PM EST
in Boxing Fight Previews
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Bad Left Hook will have live, round-by-round coverage and scoring of this card today, starting at 4:15pm ET.
Perhaps the most overlooked bigger fight of the weekend is the meeting in Germany between WBO cruiserweight titlist Marco Huck and Ola Afolabi.
Huck (26-1, 20 KO) is no mystery. He's a powerful guy and looks like one. A former kickboxer originally from Serbia, Huck has turned into a fine pro boxer and quite a popular figure in Germany, too. Huck is an aggressive, exciting fighter that has been called dirty in the past. He's the type who loves to be right up in an opponent's face, throwing a lot of punches, pressuring an entire fight. He's shown good stamina, a solid chin, and his only loss came to Steve Cunningham, currently regarded by most as the world's best cruiserweight.
Afolabi (14-1-3, 6 KO) has a misleading record. He's a terrific defensive boxer who perhaps has a bit more power than his KO rate would lead you to believe, but I'm also basing that largely on the fact that he suddenly ripped at and knocked out Enzo Maccarinelli in March on the Khan-Barrera undercard. And as far as knocking out Macca goes these days, well, who doesn't?
It is a bit of a tough fight to pick, really. Afolabi has shown a wider range of skill, but Huck is very good at what he does, has the better resume, and will have home field advantage, something not to be taken lightly when that home field is in Germany.
This is the fight where we'll find out if Afolabi is a serious top-flight cruiserweight, or if perhaps we made too much of him for beating what appears to be a wiped-out Enzo Maccarinelli. I'm guessing it's really somewhere in between that. I think he'll be good for a while, do think overall too much stock was put into the Enzo win, and don't think he wins today. Huck by decision.
On the undercard, Alexander Povetkin (17-0, 12 KO) gets back in the ring against Detroit's Leo Nolan (27-1, 10 KO). Nolan, 37, turned pro in 1992 and lost years of his career to a prison stint in the 90s.
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Eric Fields was also no small scalp for Afolabi
The way I see it going is that Huck will keep moving forward and throwing punches. Afolabi will back up, then hold his ground against the ropes and use a ton of upper body movement to try to slip punches and land hard counters one at a time. In Germany, against a Sauerland fighter, I think he’ll have trouble winning a decision this way, although I suspect that he’ll land a lot of the harder punches and connect at a better rate. Huck has a solid chin, but can be outboxed rather easily by a stick and move fighter, as Steve Cunningham proved. Cunningham doesn’t have much power and managed to knock out Huck, so anything is possible, but I think he’ll be able to stay standing and outlast Afolabi to a decision. Could be quite a chess match though.
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