By Ruslan Chikov

At the Weser-Ems-Halle in Oldenburg, Niedersachsen, Germany, hometown favorite Marco Huck (29-1, 22KOs) retained his WBO cruiserweight title with a punishing nine-round beating of Brian Minto (34-4, 21KOs).

The pace was a bit slow in the first round. Huck picked it up in the second round. He took the fight to Minto in the final twenty seconds by choosing to make it a battle of power punches. Huck's chin took Minto's punches well. The same cannot be said in the other direction. Huck's power punches seemed to bother Minto. Huck used his longer arms in the third round to hit and move away before Minto could land any punches in return. Huck started to break Minto from the punishment and put him down for the first time with a counter right hook. Minto beat the count and survived until the bell.

Huck was attacking in the fourth round. Minto would go after the body but not for too long. Huck kept making him fight. The champion was outlanding him and hurting him during the exchanges. The attack continued in the fifth round. Huck went after him with the hard power punch combinations and put him down for the second time. Minto again made it to his feet. Huck was hurting him with punches but could not finish the challenger off. Minto was still hurt at the bell as he sat down at first in the wrong corner.

Huck was going for the knockout in round six. Minto was a strong challenger. He took the punishment and continued to fight back. Huck took a rest for most of round seven. In the final twenty-five second he went back to attacking Minto and nearly put him down again. Minto went back to Huck's body in round eight and it again left his head open for hard counters. More attacking by the champion in the ninth round sent Minto down for the third time in the fight. Huck went for the finish when Minto made it to his feet. Minto took a lot of punishment in this round and the referee almost stopped the contest.

The corner of Minto stopped the fight at the start of the tenth round.

On the undercard, light heavyweight Dustin Dirks (15-0, 10 KOs) put away Theo Kruger (9-10-2, 3 KOs) in eight rounds. A pair of middleweight prospects, Juergen Doberstein and Marcos Nader (7-0, 1 KOs), won their respective bouts. Nader won a six round unanimous decision over Abdelouahed Ben Lelly and Doberstein won a six round decision over Michael Sarnelli. Cruiserweight Erik Skoglund (1-0, 1 KOs) won a four round decision over Istvan Laboda (2-1, 2 KOs) in a pro debut showing.

Light heavyweight Karo Murat (22-0, 13 KOs) beat Tommy Karpency (19-2-1, 12 KOs) with a twelve round decision. Heavyweight Kubrat Pulev (8-0, 5 KOs) pciked up a win over Evgeny Orlov (11-7-1, 8 KOs) by way of a seven round disqualification.