By Aaron Klein: Since winning the IBF heavyweight title two years ago in April 2006 with a 7th round stoppage of Chris Byrd, Wladimir Klitschko (50-3, 44 KOs) has been a huge disappointment to many boxing fans, who had hoped that Wladimir would take on the best in the division and cement himself in the minds of people as the number #1 heavyweight in the division. Instead, however, Klitschko has meandered along, fighting Calvin Brock, Ray Austin, Lamon Brewster and most recently Sultan Ibragimov, few of which the fans wanted to see him fight. Perhaps more disappointedly, Klitschko, other than his fight with Austin whom he blew out in the 2nd round with a flurry of multiple left hooks, has looked average to poor in his other fights against very beatable fighters.

Sure, he’s won them all, but he’s turned into a tentative, safety-first type fighter, looking almost terrified of throwing his right hand. At this point, he seems almost pathological on his part, some kind of problem which affects him internally, preventing him from throwing his right hands. It seems to have dated back to his fight with Samuel Peter, a fight in which Wladimir was knocked down three times and close to being knocked out. Since that fight, Wladimir has evolved into an almost entirely jab type fighter, forgoing even his once great left hook. In effect, it’s made him an incredibly boring fighter to watch, limited his fighting ability tremendously, and made him a much more beatable fighter than he previously was.

So far, Klitschko has been able to get away with only jabbing/left hooking his opponents to win his fights, but on July 12th, he’s going to be forced to fight the 6’5″ Tony Thompson (31-1, 19 KOs), his number #1 mandatory for his newly won WBO heavyweight title. This isn’t going to be a fight that Wladimir can win by standing back and jabbing like he’s done as of late, for Thompson, 36, has both longer arms and a better jab than Klitschko.

Perhaps more important than that, is the fact that Thompson is a southpaw, a style that once previously gave Wladimir problems in his 2nd round blowout loss to Corrie Sanders in March 2003. Granted, Thompson has nowhere near the same power or hand speed that Sanders previously possessed, but he seems to make up for it by being incredibly awkward to fight. At the same time, he had good boxing techniques, using his jab often, which sets up his left hand.

He throws his left in a variety of ways, either straight in, thrown as a hook or an uppercut, making it very hard to predict. He seems to fight best when he’s coming forward with his jab, which may mean bad news for Wladimir, who has been inclined to hang back, fighting passively, in many of his recent fights letting his opponents come to him. If Wladimir does this, he’s going to be getting hit an awful lot with Thompson’s jabs and left hand, and even though Thompson isn’t much of a big puncher, he gets the job done by pounding his opponents into submission over the course of the fight.

Thompson doesn’t, however, look good when being met with stiff resistance and pushed backwards against the ropes. This was the case in a brief period of his fight with Luan Krasniqi in July 2007, which Thompson eventually won by a 5th round TKO. Krasniqi, who was a badly faded fighter at the time, backed up Thompson on a couple of occasions in the fight, even stunning him with a big shot at one time. Unfortunately for Krasniqi, he was unable to keep Thompson pinned to the ropes, and once he let him go, Thompson continued with his high volume punching attack and took Krasniqi out eventually.

Wladimir hasn’t shown himself to be an aggressive attack for some time, dating back to his fight with Lamon Brewster in April 2004. However, if Klitschko wants to be successful against Thompson, then he’s going to need to find his way back to his old style of fighting somehow, because he’s not going to beat him with a jab or by pot shotting him, hoping to knock him out with one shot. It’s not going to happen, because Thompson has a good chin and will take the occasional big shot and continue raining punches down on Wladimir.

This is a fight that Wladimir is going to have to win by getting in the trenches, forgetting about his timid safety-first style of fighting, forgetting about keeping his punch output low to try and sustain his stamina, and just let his hands go. If he can do that, I see him knocking Thompson out in four or five rounds.

If Wladimir doesn’t, and continues to fight like he’s done in the last three years, Thompson will outwork him and take him out late. Personally, I think Thompson is going to beat him. Wladimir has become too timid, soft from having made too much money in boxing, and no longer has the desire or the aggression to defeat fighter in the class of Thompson.