By Chris Johnson: In a fight marred by fouls, cruiserweight Herbie Hide (42-4, 41 KOs) stopped Rüdiger May (43-6-3, 11 KOs) in the 2nd round on Tuesday night at the Maritim Hotel Halle in Halle/Saale, Germany. Hide, 36, a former WBO heavyweight champion, dropped May, 33, two times in the fight – once in the first round and then another time in the second. After the second knockdown, May was unable to get off the canvas and was counted out by referee Massimo Barrovecchio at 1:47 of the 2nd round.
Hide, ranked #5 in the WBO and #9 in the WBC cruiserweight rankings, started strong in the 1st round as he savagely attacked May wildly thrown right hands. Forgoing any sense of finesse, Hide would simply charge after his opponent throwing windmill punches and missing many of them. In that, he looked similar to the fighting style of WBC heavyweight champion Samuel Peter. May, however, didn’t have the boxing ability or the skills to take advantage of Hide’s crude attacks, and would mostly try to cover up as Hide came at him. Near the end of the first round, May, whom had done little in the round offensively, tagged Hide with an excellent right hand.
This in turn seemed to anger Hide, and he immediately charged after May, throwing a left-right combination which staggered May. Hide followed wither another right hand that dropped May to the canvas on his back. While he was sitting there, Hide added another right hand to the head for good measure. Not exactly sporting, but the referee let it go without penalizing Hide. May was able to make it up and last out the remaining seconds of the round without going down again.
In the second round, Hide immediately attacked May, charging at him like in the previous round, and throwing wild flailing punches to the head. Shortly thereafter, Hide knocked May down with a right hand. However, the referee ruled that it was a slip, although appeared to be a legitimate knockdown. Again, Hide attempted to hit May while he was down, throwing a left that missed. After May rose from the canvas, and the action resumed, Hide came after him and tagged him with a right uppercut and another right to the back of May’s head as he became tangled in the ropes and was temporarily defenseless.
The referee immediately stopped the action and penalized Hide 1-point for a rabbit punching. Hide didn’t seem too concerned with the loss of a point, however. When the action resumed, Hide charged after May, who was still hurt from being nailed moments earlier, and cornered him against the ropes. While attacking him on the ropes, Hide pummeled May with right hands while holding the back of his head to keep him from moving away from the punches. This produced the final knockdown as May dropped to the canvas and was unable to get up. He attempted to get up but immediately fell down again face first on the canvas.
For Hide, this was his 7th consecutive win as a cruiserweight since moving up from the heavyweight in 2006. However, Hide has fought exclusively soft opposition and it’s unclear when he’ll decide on stepping up the level of opposition. For his sake, hopefully soon, because at 36 years-old, he doesn’t have a whole lot of time remaining before he starts getting diminishing returns.