Former WBO cruiserweight champion Marco Huck (39-3-1, 27 KOs) will be facing #8 WBC Ovill McKenzie (25-12-1, 13 KOs) on September 24 in Frankfurt, Germany. It’s unknown if the Huck vs. McKenzie fight will be an eliminator for the WBC crown. Heck, there’s already a line of top talents that are waiting to get a crack at Bellew. They’re like sharks smelling blood in the water. Mairis Briedis, the #1 WBC challenger, wants his mandatory shot at the belt.
There’s also WBC ‘Champion in Recess’ Grigory Drozd that wants his shot at Bellew as well. Either of those guys would likely beat Bellew all day long when they eventually get a chance at fighting him. Just how long the World Boxing Council will let Bellew hold onto their title without fighting Brieidis and Drozd is anyone’s guess. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the WBC lets Bellew steer around those guys until 2018.
The 36-year-old McKenzie was arguably robbed in his last fight against IBF cruierweight champion Victor Ramirez last October in fighting to a 12 round draw against him in Buenos Aires, Argentina. McKenzie appeared to win the fight by a lopsided decision, but the judges scored it a draw. I had McKenzie easily winning by a nine rounds to three score. I was pretty surprised when the judges scored it a draw. I mean, I figured that McKenzie would have to do something special to get the decision given that he was the visiting fighter, but it was so one-sided that I thought he should have clearly won.
It’s not a great fight for 31-year-old Huck, because he should be looking to take some better scalps than this to get him in the No.1 position for him to fight for the WBC title against champion Tony Bellew. Huck reportedly wants to fight Bellew so that he can take his WBC strap from him, but it’s likely that the only way that Huck will be able to get that fight is if he becomes his mandatory challenger. After flapping his gums about him being the No.1 fighter in the cruiserweight division after his win over Illunga Makabu last May, it looks like Bellew is going to go soft in his first defense by taking a voluntary rather than his #1 mandatory challenger Mairis Briedis. I guessed as much.
As far as Huck goes, he lost his WBO cruiserweight strap last year to unbeaten Polish fighter Krzysztof Glowacki in losing by an 11th round knockout in August 2015. Huck came back from that loss to defeat Ola Afobai by a 10th round stoppage last February in their fourth fight together.
Before losing his WBO title to Glowacki last year, Huck had held the title for six years from 2009 to 2015. Over that time span, Huck successfully defended his WBO title 13 times. Huck even moved up to the heavyweight division briefly and fought Alexander Povetkin to a controversial 12 round draw in February 2012. Huck gave more than a good account of himself. He appeared to out-punch Povetkin in that fight despite being outweighed by 20 pounds. That was a very impressive performance by Huck.