NEWARK, N.J. -- Poland's Krzysztof Glowacki was unknown outside his home country before Friday night but is unknown no more after scoring a sensational 11th-round knockout of Marco Huck to win a cruiserweight world title in a massive upset at the Prudential Center.
It was also a fight of the year candidate as Glowacki rebounded from a sixth-round knockdown and rallied for the knockout in a brutal slugfest that ended Huck's quest for history on the Antonio Tarver-Steve Cunningham undercard of a Premier Boxing Champions card.
"My trainer [Fiodor Lapin] told me to pace myself and I didn't listen to him," Glowacki said through a translator. "I knew the second part of the fight wasn't mine so I decided to go for broke. Not even for a second did I think I would lose this fight.
"This is the biggest night of my life."
After a career spent fighting in his native Germany, Huck (38-3-1, 26 KOs), 30, had come to United States for two reasons -- to make a splash in the country he hopes to make his base and to set the cruiserweight title defense record.
While he sure made a splash, because it was a terrific fight, he failed in his quest for the division title defense record. He remains tied with England's Johnny Nelson with 13 title defenses in the 200-pound weight class founded in 1979 (then a 190-pound division).
Glowacki (25-0, 16 KOs), 29, with the raucous Polish crowd cheering his every punch, not only ended Huck's quest for history but also the possibility of a title defense against former pound-for-pound king Roy Jones Jr., who was ringside (even though he fights on Sunday in Connecticut) and the prospect of a big fight at heavyweight, where he hoped to move up to sooner rather than later.
"Huck had pulled ahead and he is a beastly strong guy but this Glowacki did not stop coming," said Lou DiBella, Huck's American promoter. "He was like the Undertaker. He was dead on the canvas and got up and went and got Huck. That was a great fight.
"It was a Huck performance until that last shot. That was great TV. This is the entertainment business and that was entertainment."
Huck was ahead on all three scorecards at the time of the knockout, leading 96-93, 96-93 and 95-94. Huck landed 127 of 395 punches (32 percent), according to CompuBox. Glowacki connected 147 of 436 (34 percent).
Glowacki, the mandatory challenger, set the tone for the fight by being very aggressive in the first round and Huck did not look comfortable, especially when Glowacki wobbled him with a right hand to the temple just before the bell ended the round.
With the crowd chanting "Glowacki! Glowacki!" he continued to stalk Huck in the second round. Huck is usually the aggressor and this was something different for him, although he began to pick up the pace. Glowacki was relentless and his defense was sound, while Huck was perhaps frustrated at the end of the third round when he continued to fight after the bell.
Huck connected with three solid right hands in a row in the fifth round, but Glowacki did not buckle and quickly returned fire in an increasingly violent fight.
The sixth round was a wild round of the year candidate as Huck landed a left hook to the temple one minute in to floor Glowacki, who earned $60,000 to Huck's $350,000. He barely beat the count and looked out of it, but then charged at Huck and it was on. They traded with abandon for most of the rest of the round, nailing each other with heavy shots.
"I still cannot hear well because of the knockdown," Glowacki said. "I didn't even realize I was counted [on the knockdown] and I didn't care what the scores were. He wanted to dominate me and bully me. I always have something inside of me against bullies."
They continued to land big shots round after round in an intense battle. Huck opened a cut over Glowacki's right eye early in the 10th round and appeared in control of the fight.
But in the 11th round, Glowacki turned the tables, hammering Huck with a left and a right to the head for a knockdown that sent Huck sprawling to the canvas. He was shaky as the fight continued and Glowacki was all over him.
He pounded Huck into the ropes, and as he fell to the mat referee David Fields waved off the fight at 2 minutes, 39 seconds as the crowd went bananas.
Huck, who was working with trainer Don House for the first time after splitting with longtime trainer Ulli Wegner (who watched from ringside as an analyst for the German pay-per-view telecast), was not available for comment after the fight and was taken to nearby Rutgers University Hospital for observation.
• Polish junior lightweight Kamil Laszczyk (21-0, 8 KOs), with the heavy Polish crowd cheering for him, routed Oscauris Frias (16-1, 6 KOs), of the Dominican Republic, for a shutout eight-round decision. All three judges had it 80-72 for Laszczyk, whose right hand was on point. Referee Sparkle Lee docked a point from Frias for throwing a punch after the bell ended the third round. Laszczyk came out charging in the fourth round, dropping Frias with a clean right hand down the middle.
• Junior featherweight Luis Rosa (21-0, 10 KOs), of New Haven, Connecticut, celebrated the extension of his promotional contract with DiBella this week with a one-sided sixth-round technical decision victory against Mexico's Giovanni Caro (24-17-4, 19 KOs). Rosa dominated the fight until an accidental head butt opened a bad cut over Caro's right eye and he was unable to continue, so they went to the scorecards and Rosa was ahead 60-53, 59-55 and 58-56.
• Middleweight Jarret Hurd (16-0, 10 KOs), of Accokeek, Maryland, got the better of Jeff Lentz (5-1, 1 KO), of Lanoka Harbor, New Jersey, in a pitched battle that ended with Hurd winning by seventh-round knockout. He was nailing Lentz in the seventh round, including with a right hand to the head that sent him staggering into the ropes, causing referee Harvey Dock to stop the fight at 2 minutes, 59 seconds.
• New York welterweight Mikkel LesPierre (10-0, 4 KOs) cruised to a near-shutout decision against Baltimore's Kevin Womack Jr. (7-7-3, 5 KOs). Two judges had the fight 59-55 and one had it a 60-54 sweep.