MARCO HUCK vs GEOFFREY BATTELO

Germany's heavy hitting Marco Huck makes the second defence of his European cruiser title on Saturday when he will be seeking his fifth consecutive stoppage win against Belgium’s Geoffrey Battelo, who comes in as a substitute.

On the face if it this is something of a formality for Huck, but you can never tell: unbeaten cruiserweight Alexander Alexeev getting stopped last weekend by a little-known Argentinean was a truly stunning upset.

Battelo is 29, and he’s won 18 in a row with 15 KOs. This suggests he can punch a bit. He looks big and strong, and he has sparred with Huck in Germany so he will have a good idea of what to expect.

The little footage I have seen of Battelo doesn’t give much to go on. He seems a basic type of boxer, jabbing and then throwing the right hand.

This is a jump in class for Battelo, whose best win was probably a one-round stoppage over Jean-Claude Bikoi, a fighter from Cameroon who had been 12 rounds with Russian Grigory Drozd in his last fight and who had never been stopped previously. Battelo also won a unanimous 10-round decision over Rachid El Hadak, a fairly ordinary boxer who had been stopped in eight rounds by Huck earlier in his career (although four months before meeting Battelo, El Hadak extended Giacobbe Fragomeni in a 12-round fight in Italy).

On Saturday, Battelo will find it very different meeting Huck under actual battle conditions. He may well have been competitive in sparring, but this is the real thing, and Huck likes to hurt people in the ring —he won’t be holding anything back.

Huck does tend to fight in bursts, though, letting his hands go in big, free-swinging attacks and then getting back behind his high guard. If Battelo can weather the onslaughts and get his jab and right hand to work he might be able to make a good showing. It does seem that Battelo hits hard enough to make Huck show him a little respect, and on the surface he doesn’t seem intimidated.

It would be a big surprise if Battelo won, of course, but he has shown boldness in stepping into the breach at short notice and I hope he doesn’t get blown away for his trouble.

I am not sure how well Battelo can stand up to Huck’s punches. Italy’s Fabio Tuiach had never been stopped in 23 bouts but Huck smashed right through him in a two-round mismatch in his last fight. I would hope that Battelo can go longer than two rounds. At a guess I would say that the Belgian can survive into the middle rounds. If Battelo gets past, say, the seventh round, I think he will have done well.