(Photo: michaelsterlingeaton.com) By Allan Fox: This Saturday night IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (57-3, 50 KO’s) will be defending his title against his mandatory challenger 40-year-old Tony Thompson (36-2, 24 KO’s) in what amounts to be a stay busy fight for Wladimir at the Stade de Suisse, in Berne, Switzerland. Technically, Wladimir has no choice but to defend against Thompson if he wants to keep his IBF title, but it’s like a stay busy fight in terms of the threat level from the aging Thompson.

The fact that Wladimir has opted to fight Thompson in Switzerland rather than Germany suggests that the public interest in this fight is about zero even for Germany where Wladimir regularly fights in front of huge crowds each time he fights.

A fight between Wladimir and Thompson would be lucky to bring in 2000 fans if it took place in the United States, because this is a really unpopular match-up and few boxing fans want to see Wladmir clinching for nine or ten rounds before he finally knocks out the 40-year-old Thompson.

It would be nice if Wladimir reverted back to his fighting style in the late 1990s when he was actually an exciting heavyweight to watch, but his style has been altered to the point where he’s near unwatchable in recent years. All he seems to do is jab, clinch, throw right hand, and then clinch. There’s not much of a alteration from this style of fighting for the big Ukrainian from fight to fight, and it’s obviously hurt his popularity in places like the United States.

As for this fight on Saturday, Thompson will be throwing a lot of slow right hooks and straight left hands while he attempts to walk Wladimir down. He’s going to get hit with a great deal of lead right hands from Wladimir because that seemed to be the only thing that was working for Wladimir the last time he fought Thompson in 2008. Wladimir’s jabs and left hooks were effectively picked off on the gloves by Thompson, but he didn’t any defense for Wladimir’s straight hands. Those were able to drive through Thompson’s gloves to connect to the head. Thompson was able to slow then impact down some but not enough to lessen the impact. Eventually it wore him down and he was stopped in the 11th. On Saturday, you can expect Wladimir to repeat this process in an easier fight than four years ago.