By Johnny Walker
In a thrilling brawl that often resembled a real-life Rocky movie, WBO cruiserweight champion Marco “Captain” Huck and Ola Afolabi beat each other to a standstill majority draw today in Erfurt, Germany. Huck retains his WBO cruiserweight title.
Afolabi started off by boxing very well, reeling off the first three rounds with a nice mix of jabs and body punches. By round three, Huck’s nose was bloodied.
Huck (r) fought valiantly against Afolabi.
After that, Huck started finding his way into the fight, scoring with his trademark flurries and slowly turning the tide in his favor.
Afolabi showed a granite chin in this fight: Huck scored with a monster uppercut in round six that stunned the British fighter, but Afolabi shook it off. In round seven, Huck rocked Afolabi with a huge right hand, but again the Brit fighter survived and even cut Huck’s left eye.
Huck punished Afolabi in round eight with uppercuts, left hooks and right crosses, and in round nine, a wild flurry from Huck had the Brit barely hanging on, and perhaps saved by the bell to end the round.
Amazingly, Afolabi came back in the tenth round and had Huck backing up as he went on the attack.
The fighters traded hard blows in the eleventh, and by the final frame, both men were on the verge of exhaustion. The bout now resembled a Rocky movie, as both wilted boxers stood and delivered bombs to each other’s faces. Again, Afolabi appeared hurt and ready to go, but somehow he held on and this exciting bout came to an end.
The finals scores were 114-114 twice, and 115-113 for Huck, a majority draw. Boxing Insider scored the fight 116-112 for Huck.
The next question for the exciting Huck (34-2-1, 25 KOs), who appeared to defeat WBA regular heavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin in his last fight only to lose by a majority decision, is whether to continue to ply his trade as a cruiserweight, or move up to heavyweight for good.
Afolabi’s (19-2-4, 9 KOs) stock also now rises, and a trilogy with Huck may be in the offing if the latter decides to stay at cruiser.