Comments Thread For: Hucks Survives a Tough Challenge To Decision Arslan

[-vincenzo-]

sauerland made sure huck wins this, arslan only had a chance by knock-out. ahmed oener exposed them in an interview not too long ago when he admitted to having rankings and stuff fixed himself and said thats how the business is and sauerland does the same.

mainstream media chose to ignore this because they make good money with sauerland.

[MarcianoFan]

Arslan 117-111. And it so happens that that's dead in the middle of what I'd consider a reasonable range of scoring. I couldn't argue for any one round that Huck definitely won, though I did give him 3 by the barest of margins. Arslan clearly won no fewer than 6, and I thought his combination of effective aggression and ring generalship- which in this case was hard to separate since he bulled Huck to the ropes constantly- won him the decisive edge in at least a few more. Anything between 120-108 Arslan and 114-114 would be halfway defensible, but there's not a snowball's chance in hell that Huck won the fight. Pure corruption and/or incompetence.

And wow...BoxNation...get your act together. I don't think I've ever watched one of their broadcasts without being just plain stunned at how laughable their scorecards are. I'm not in the UK so luckily I've only had the misfortune to have to listen to their BS a handful of times, but it's still really sad. Come to think of it, Channel 5's Woodhall is just as bad. And Jim Watt...I can't remember if he's BoxNation or Sky or what. But I'm no fan of his, either. UK boxing broadcasters in general are a pet peeve of mine. It's pretty bad when BJ Flores could give you valuable lessons on scoring a fight for TV.

[White_Knight]

CRUISERWEIGHTS are better than HWS today,LEBEDEV-HUCK-AFOLABI-WLODARCZYK-GREEN-HERNANDEZ,etc....;HUCK fought well vs POVETKIN and some say he deserved the vicyory.Another fighter that bring something in HWS is DAVID HAYE,HAYE is another CRUISERWEIGHT moved up in weight,USS is another one;CRUISERWEIGHTS are better than HWS today no doubt about it!!!

I don't know if you are trolling or not, but this response is based on the assumption you aren't.

When the heavyweight's best (Wladimir) fought the cruiserweight's best (David Haye), the heavyweight won. When one cruiserweight's best (Huck) fought one of heavyweight's possible best (Povetkin), the heavyweight won again.

If Chambers dropped down to cruiserweight he would clean the division out.

[MarcianoFan]

I don't know if you are trolling or not, but this response is based on the assumption you aren't.

When the heavyweight's best (Wladimir) fought the cruiserweight's best (David Haye), the heavyweight won. When one cruiserweight's best (Huck) fought one of heavyweight's possible best (Povetkin), the heavyweight won again.

If Chambers dropped down to cruiserweight he would clean the division out.

Your case is flawed due to the weakness of 2 of your premises, one in particular.

True, Wlad proved himself superior to Haye. No arguing that. But he has also proved himself so superior to the rest of the division that there is a lot of room to debate the rest of the division's head-to-head prospects yet.

Povetkin was the clear #3 heavyweight behind only the Klitschkos when he fought Huck. Huck, on the other hand, deserved to be ranked #4 in his division behind Hernandez, Lebedev, and probably also Tarver when you consider that he had just been clearly beaten by then-6th ranked Lebedev, while Tarver had beaten a top-10 ranked Green without any red ink on his resume. Possible steroid abuse aside, of course. So Huck was at least arguably fighting above his own rank AND above his own division.

And of course the key point: Huck DEFINITELY outfought Povetkin, and most likely deserved the win. You can argue the specific score and I won't necessarily disagree- I would be on board with anything between 116-112 Huck and 115-113 Povetkin- but Huck clearly had the overall better night. And let's be honest. If an Archangel or something came down from heaven and told you that the man upstairs is a huge boxing fan, has a strong opinion on the fight, and had decided to condition your entry into Heaven or Hell upon your picking the true deserved winner of the fight, I seriously hope you'd pick Huck.

Just for a visual (and I'm not claiming to know who'd win each fight for sure), here are the top 10 heavyweights in my opinion, head to head with the top 10 cruisers:
1. Wlad vs. Denis Lebedev
2. Vitali vs. Yoan Pablo Hernandez
3. Haye vs. Troy Ross
4. Adamek vs. Cunningham (I still include him because he's fought at CW in the past year and hasn't accomplished anything at HW yet)
5. Povetkin vs. Afolabi
6. Fury vs. Wlodarczyk
7. Chambers vs. Arslan
8. Pulev vs. Huck
9. Chisora vs. Kayode
10. Helenius vs. Guillermo Jones or Danny Green

My sense is that the top 4 Heavyweights probably beat the top 4 cruiserweights, but I'm seeing a lot of tossups after that. Luckily, we'll get one of these matchups in 6 weeks' time, and Chambers will apparently be testing himself at Cruiser soon, as well.

[Superflo777]

True, Wlad proved himself superior to Haye. No arguing that. But he has also proved himself so superior to the rest of the division that there is a lot of room to debate the rest of the division's head-to-head prospects yet.

Lmao proved? How? By beating Valuev and Ruiz?

[BostonGuy]

I've never seen a 'title' fight that looked as amateurish as this one. Arlsan's strategy was to basically to press forward with a high guard with virtually no jab and lateral movement; once he was close enough to his opponent, let his hands go and engaged in, in-fighting with no power.

Huck's strategy was basically the European version of the "rope-a-dope." Keep a high guard, let your opponent come in and punch and then return offense sporadically with varied success.

I've watched a lot of Huck fights over the years and it's amazing that he has such limited boxing skills. This guy has two gears: offense and defense. If he's on defense, he's got his hands in a high guard; there's no timing his opponent or counterpunching. Once he's absorbed enough punches, he returns fire with one-two, one-two combinations with a body shot occationally mixed in. In other words, he's a crude one dimensional brawler. Pathetic...

[Salardo]

And of course the key point: Huck DEFINITELY outfought Povetkin, and most likely deserved the win. You can argue the specific score and I won't necessarily disagree- I would be on board with anything between 116-112 Huck and 115-113 Povetkin- but Huck clearly had the overall better night.

I disagree. I had Povetkin winning by 1 point. very close fight but I really felt Huck didnt win it.

[MarcianoFan]

Lmao proved? How? By beating Valuev and Ruiz?

I should perhaps have been more clear. I'm saying Wlad has proven his superiority over the best heavyweights, so the fact that he's also superior to a somewhat recent cruiserweight champion doesn't necessarily make the case that the heavies are generally better than the cruisers, even aside from p4p-type arguments.

[MarcianoFan]

I disagree. I had Povetkin winning by 1 point. very close fight but I really felt Huck didnt win it.

Fair enough. I disagree, but not too strongly.

[White_Knight]

Your case is flawed due to the weakness of 2 of your premises, one in particular.

True, Wlad proved himself superior to Haye. No arguing that. But he has also proved himself so superior to the rest of the division that there is a lot of room to debate the rest of the division's head-to-head prospects yet.

Povetkin was the clear #3 heavyweight behind only the Klitschkos when he fought Huck. Huck, on the other hand, deserved to be ranked #4 in his division behind Hernandez, Lebedev, and probably also Tarver when you consider that he had just been clearly beaten by then-6th ranked Lebedev, while Tarver had beaten a top-10 ranked Green without any red ink on his resume. Possible steroid abuse aside, of course. So Huck was at least arguably fighting above his own rank AND above his own division.

And of course the key point: Huck DEFINITELY outfought Povetkin, and most likely deserved the win. You can argue the specific score and I won't necessarily disagree- I would be on board with anything between 116-112 Huck and 115-113 Povetkin- but Huck clearly had the overall better night. And let's be honest. If an Archangel or something came down from heaven and told you that the man upstairs is a huge boxing fan, has a strong opinion on the fight, and had decided to condition your entry into Heaven or Hell upon your picking the true deserved winner of the fight, I seriously hope you'd pick Huck.

Just for a visual (and I'm not claiming to know who'd win each fight for sure), here are the top 10 heavyweights in my opinion, head to head with the top 10 cruisers:
1. Wlad vs. Denis Lebedev
2. Vitali vs. Yoan Pablo Hernandez
3. Haye vs. Troy Ross
4. Adamek vs. Cunningham (I still include him because he's fought at CW in the past year and hasn't accomplished anything at HW yet)
5. Povetkin vs. Afolabi
6. Fury vs. Wlodarczyk
7. Chambers vs. Arslan
8. Pulev vs. Huck
9. Chisora vs. Kayode
10. Helenius vs. Guillermo Jones or Danny Green

My sense is that the top 4 Heavyweights probably beat the top 4 cruiserweights, but I'm seeing a lot of tossups after that. Luckily, we'll get one of these matchups in 6 weeks' time, and Chambers will apparently be testing himself at Cruiser soon, as well.

I changed the 10 heavies to the ones I think best. I left the cruiserweights the same because you are batting for the cruisers, so you should select the one you want. I put Vitali in 4th place because he is 41 now.

The fights:

W. Klitschko vs Denis Lebedev
Price vs Hernandez
Haye vs Troy Ross
V. Klitschko vs Cunningham
Wilder vs Afolabi
Povetkin vs Wlodarczyk
Adamek vs Arslan
Arreola vs Huck
Perez vs Kayode
Chagaev vs Green

I would have given the last spot to Solis if he were in shape. Other possibilites for that spot are Chisora, Fury, Mitchell, and Helenius.

The first 5 fights are all likely to be knockouts of the cruiserweights by the heavies. It would be considered a big upset were any of the first 5 fights to go the way of the cruiserweights.

Adamek has only been beaten by Chad Dawson and Vitali Klitschko, and Arslan is no where near being in the same league. Some say Chambers beat Adamek, but Arslan is not in Chambers' league either. I think it is fair, therefore, to give the fight to Adamek.

That is already 6 fights won by the heavies.

I think even the harshest critics of the heavyweight division would pick a heavyweight winning 1 of the other 4 fights. But even if they didn't, the heavies would still have won the majority.

Arguing that the cruiserweights would win 6 of the fights is a much harder argument to make.