By Rob Smith: IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (58-3, 51 KO’s) improved upon his performance from four years ago by knocking out 40-year-old Tony Thompson (36-3, 24 KO’s) in the 6th round on Saturday night at the Stade de Suisse in Berne, Switzerland. Wladimir dropped Thompson two times in the fight – once in the 5th and the final time in the 6th – to get the stoppage at 2:56 of the 6th round.
Wladimir landed three straight right hands from in close followed by a light left hand that sent Thompson down on the canvas in the 6th. He did make it up at the count of nine, but referee Sam Williams stopped the fight after observing that Thompson couldn’t stand up without holding onto the ropes.
Wladimir seemed to be trying to make a point with this fight by looking for a knockout as fast as possible, because he threw very few jabs. It was kind of strange to see Wladiimr only trying to throw right hands, because it made him seem awkward and it probably resulted in the fight lasting much longer than it should have. His trainer Emanuel Steward kept pleading with Wladimir to use his jab throughout the fight, but Wladimir rarely did so. When he finally did in the 5th round, he was able to score a knockdown of Thompson when he hit him with a hard jab followed by a right hand right behind it. However, Wladimir went right back to throwing nothing but right hands in the 6th, and he looked uncoordinated while chasing Thompson around the ring trying to brain him with his rights.
It definitely wasn’t one of Wladimir’s finer performances. He looked pretty awful in his clinch-filled 4th round stoppage of 39-year-old Jean-Marc Mormeck last March, but this was equally bad because of how uncoordinated Wladimir looked while trying to throw nothing but right hands.
There wasn’t any action to speak of in the 1st round. Wladimir looked timid and Thompson was even worse. In fact, Thompson only threw a handful of punches the entire fight. He was playing it safe trying not to get hit, and it looked like he didn’t want to get countered by Wladimir. In the 2nd round, Wladimir shoved Thompson to the canvas twice in what appeared to be Wladimir’s attempt to make it a rough fight for Thompson. Wladimir did last a few nice right hands, but it another round of little action.
There wasn’t much action in the 3rd round either aside from a few right hands from Wladimir that got Thompson’s attention. Thompson was able to land some left hands by catching Wladimir when he was charging at him. Wladimir was lucky that Thompson had little power, because if this Corrie Sanders he was in there with, Wladimir wouldn’t have made it past the 3rd round. He was fighting a really stupid fight and looking like an uncoordinated novice without much sense.
Wladimir dominated the 4th, as Thompson looked like he was done for the night and purely in the survival mode.
In the 5th, Wladimir dropped Thompson late in the round with a nice right hand. However, Wladimir unable to finish him off because he missed badly each time he’d try and connect event though Thompson was standing right in front of him practically begging to be knocked out. The hand-eye coordination just wasn’t there for Wladimir.
In the 6th round, Wladimir chased after Thompson looking to take him out with right hands. Again, he wasn’t throwing any left hands and looked awkward. However, Wladimir finally chased Thompson to the ropes and nailed him with three straight right hands followed by a left that put him down. It almost looked like Wladimir partially pushed Thompson down as well in the process. None of the shots that landed appeared to be real solid blows and I had the feeling that Thompson simply didn’t want to fight anymore because he was resting with his arm underneath his head like he was sleeping.
***
Undercard results:
Nuri Seferi UD 8 Giulian Ilie
Tony Harrison TKO 1 Flavio Turelli
Istvan Szili UD 8 Daniel Urbanski