26/02/12 Povet king? Cleverly clever?

For me the fight of the night has to have been Alexander Povetkin v Marco Huck, just an all out heavyweight brawl at times for the WBA championship. Firstly i take my hat off to Povetkin for fighting Huck in Germany as we all know just how tough the German crowd can be to please especially when they are not on your side. But Povetkin held his own the whole fight and seemed to have controlled the fight better than Huck. Huck stepping up from Cruiserweight found himself in the same position as David Haye when he did the same and had all the speed and agility just not quite enough power to finish off the Russian opponent. Round 4 looked Hucks most likely chance to have caused damage as with around 30 seconds left of the round he had Povetkin on the back foot and for a moment the crowd must have thought that the perfect 23-0 record was gone but the bell sounded and Povetkin had time to recover. Round 12 was one of the best rounds of boxing i have seen for a while as both fighters poured every last bit of energy they had left into their punches, Huck, knowing he needed a KO punch landed with a straight right that would have most defiantly taken down any cruiserweight but Povetkin took it like a true heavyweight and stood strong proving why he is the world champion. The majority decision going in Povetkins favour did prove the fight was close at times. Great effort from both men which i really enjoyed but did leaving me asking myself could Derrick Chisora be the next WBA champion of the world.....based on this fight i would probably have to say yes.

I was really looking forward to watching Nathan Cleverly take on Tommy Karpency, with the ultimate question being, could Karpency walk the walk with Cleverly. And straight from the first bell Karpency looked in too deep and struggled to keep pace with the Welshman, shots came thick and fast and cleverly looked as if he was going to stop the fight early on. By round 5 Karpency was in the corner with dad Tom Karpency snr telling him that he was to tired to continue and he couldn’t keep up with the WBO champion. After great support from his corner, Karpency continued and managed to stay in the fight coming on slightly stronger in the last 3rd of the fight, but he was never even close to winning a round as Jabs and Body shots from cleverly seemed to continuously slow his opponent down and just when it seemed he could end the fight with one killer punch it never came. I think overall the welsh crowd was impressed and felt like the homecoming of their champion was a huge success but a KO may have been what they were after, especially the way the fight was heading, with a UD from the judges scoring the fight 120-108 in Cleverlys favour, the WBO light heavyweight champion will now be looking for a match with a classier opponent. Im sure the cleverly camp will be looking at people like Tavoris Cloud and Jean Pascal, although Frank Warren did confirm he will be looking at Bernard Hopkins after the Chad Dawson rematch. I personally think its a great call, as someone like Hopkins will give Nathan a really tough time in the ring and be a very awkward opponent to box against, this will give cleverly all the experience he needs going into the ring against some of the other light heavy’s. Maybe even Andre Ward if he does step up from super middleweight, im excited just thinking about it.

Devon Alexander managed to turn around his bout in the early rounds against Marcos Maidana. after receiving a cut above the eye in the 3rd round it looked as if Maidana would go on to win this fight proving to strong for Alexander in the early rounds. But Alexander found his rhythm and started picking off his opponent in style, maybe it was the weight difference but Maidana looked weak and should perhaps stay at 140lbs in the future. The final score cards read 100-90, 100-90, and 99-91 in the favour of Alexander.

23-0 Adrian Broner seemed to make very easy work of Eloy Perez, with a nasty right hand shot ending the bout in round 4. Now proving that he can dominate the super featherweight division it maybe worth him looking a division higher to take on fighters like Gamboa, Marquez, Burns and Rios. My guess is that he will now leave the WBO super featherweight belt behind and go after a bigger fighter now that he finally has some recognition as being a stand out boxer and one to watch.