By Jason Kim: 40-year-old Tony Thompson (36-2, 24 KO’s) complains that he wasn’t in optimal health the last time he fought heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (57-3, 50 KOs) four years ago, and if he was it would have been a much different story.

Thompson fought Wladimir with an injured right knee that got in the way of his training and slowed him down in the fight, which he ended up losing by an 11th round TKO. Unlike a lot of contenders who never get a second chance at a title shot, Thompson will get another opportunity to fight Wladimir next Saturday night at the Stade de Suisse, in Berne, Switzerland. This time Thompson doesn’t have any injuries that will slow him down nor will he have any excuses should he lose.

Thompson said “Everybody in my team knew I had an injury in the first fight. It’s hard enough to fight Klitschko with two legs, but I really was on one leg. I had a torn meniscus in my knee.”

Thompson did look slow on his feet in that fight, and he lacked power. However, Thompson doesn’t look any faster or stronger now four years later without any injuries to his knee. I’d say he looks worse than he was in 2008 with a bad knee. I guess aging will do that to you. Wladimir probably isn’t as good now as he was back then either, so everything could balance out to where we have a repeat of the last fight with Wladmir basically hugging Thompson into submission.

Wladimir needs to fight with a little more aggression than he did last March in his 4th round knockout win over 5’11” 39-year-old Jean Marc-Mormeck. That fight was nearly unwatchable because of all the clinching Wladimir was doing. He had someone who was too small, too old and too weak to do anything with him, yet Wladimir was clinching Mormeck with great frequency in every round until he finally took him out in the 4th.