Denis Lebedev destroys Alexeev in two

In what has become the men's main event on today's German card, Denis Lebedev dispatched Alexander Alexeev with surprising ease, knocking him out in two rounds.  Lebedev is now the mandatory to face Marco Huck, and is on quite a run lately.  

From the beginning, Alexeev was able to establish his superior jab, but Lebedev was prepared for it.  While the jab was catching Lebedev quite a bit, Lebedev was able to avoid enough of the shots and jump in with powerful left hooks to the head and body.  About a minute and a half in, Lebedev landed a counter left hook that rocked Alexeev, causing him to fight without much balance for the rest of the round.  Lebedev appeared to break Alexeev's nose with an overhand left towards the end of the round.

The second round was actually much better for Alexeev - until the knockout.  For two minutes, Alexeev was able to keep Lebedev off of him with the jab, and Lebedev was missing with his much more wild shots.  However, with about 30 seconds left in the round, Lebedev was able to slip a jab and land a crushing left hook that sent Alexeev to the floor. While Alexeev made a valiant effort to get up, his balance wasn't there and he fell back down in the process of getting up, by which time the referee had counted to ten.

Lebedev has been sending a message to the cruiserweight division that he might be a force to be reckoned with. As shown in this fight and his bout with Enzo Maccaranelli, where he finished the Welshman in more dominant fashion than did David Haye, he has excellent power, despite not having an incredible knockout record.  He also appears to have a solid chin, and is a much better technical boxer than a lot of the slugging cruiserweights like Marco Huck.  With Huck on the horizon for Lebedev, there could be a new sheriff in town in the near future.