IBO/IBF/WBO/IBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (60-3, 51 KOs) toyed with his former sparring partner Francesco Pianeta (28-1-1, 15 KOs) in knocking him down three times in stopping him in the 6th round on Saturday night at the SAP Arena in Mannheim, Germany. The end of the fight came from a left-right-left combination from Wladimir that sent the 6’5″ Pianeta down on the canvas on all fours. Although Pianeta got back to his feet, the referee chose to halt the fight anyway due to Pianeta staggering after getting back up.
Wladimir knocked Pianeta down in the 5th with a left hook to the head. In the 4th, Wladimir knocked Pianeta down with a jab followed by a straight right to the head.
The fight resembled a sparring session rather than an actual fight due to Wladimir fighting in a relaxed way, hitting the slow moving Pianeta at will with jabs and right hands to the head. Pianeta had the size, but not the reach to land his shots. When he would attempt to come forward to land his punches, Wladimir would immediately back away leaving Pianeta throwing shots in the air.
Pianeta tried to make it a fight of it in rounds one through three with his wild punches, but he couldn’t land with any regularity due to Wladimir pulling away from the shots. The only time that Pianeta had any real luck was when he charged Wladimir while throwing punches. This worked, but Wladimir was effective at grabbing Pianeta quickly to keep him from landing any big shots when he cam in range.
With this win, Wladimir gets his 60th win and he will now facing WBA heavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin in the summer in a fight where Wladimir will make his biggest payday of his career.
Other boxing results on the card:
Christina Hammer UD 10 Zita Zatyko
Mike Perez UD 10 Travis Walker
