By Per Ake Persson, at ringside for BoxingScene
Hanover, Germany - Nikolai "The Beast From The East" Valuev (44-0, 32KOs) only needed 3 rounds to crush American challenger Owen "What The Heck" Beck (25-3, 18KOs) and retain his WBA heavyweight championship.
Beck came out swinging from the start of the first round, but Valuev would return fire with bigger punches and began to push Beck back. In the secone round, it was more of the same as Beck took it Valuev and tried to get lucky. A right hand sent Beck down to the mat for the first time in the fight and he was barely able to keep himself together. Valuev went on the attack to close the show, but Beck was lucky to be saved by the bell.
At the start of the third, it was obvious that Beck's legs were still bad from the previous round. Valuev began to unload with more big punches that sent Beck down to the mat for the second time in the bout. Beck was able to beat the count, but appeared to be in very bad shape. Valuev went on the attack by landing a big three-punch combo that prompted the referee to stop the contest as the crowd went wild.
On the undercard;
Undefeated Amin Asikainen (18-0, 14KOs) picked up the EBU middleweight championship after he stopped the defending champ Sebastian "Hurricane" Sylvester (21-2, 9KOs) in the eigth round.
Undefeated heavyweight Alexander Povetkin (8-0, 6KOs) stopped fringe contender Livin Castilloin four rounds.
Welterweight Oktay Urkal scored an easy 8-round decision over Andrei Rimer. Urkal looks to challenge WBA welterweight champion Ricky Hatton next.
Christophe Canclaux stopped Sylvain Touzet in four rounds.
Cruiserweight Marco Huck (15-0, 12KOs) kepst his win streak alive by scoring and easy ten round decision over Nuri Seferi.
Undefeated cruiserweight Pawel Kolodziej (14-0, 8KOs) blew away Nabil Haciani in one round.
