By Jason Kim: If there was ever an opponent that was perfect for IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (57-3, 50 KO’s) to come out of his shell for once and show some offensive skills, it’s the light hitting 40-year-old Tony Thompson (36-1, 24 KO’s), who Wladimir will be facing tonight in Berne, Switzerland.

It doesn’t get any better than this for Wladimir, because not only is Thompson old and weak, he’s also slow. He’s tailor-made for the big Ukrainian to open up with his old arsenal to blast him out and impress boxing fans. It’s been many years since Wladimir fought with any kind of conviction in a fight.

I’d have to go back to Wladimir’s fight with Lamon Brewster in 2004 when Wladmir really opened up with his offense for any length of time. He lost that fight by a 5th round TKO, but it was nice to see Wladimir fighting without caution.

Pretty much every fight since then has been a safety-first fight for Wladimir with him stabbing his opponents with jabs and doing a lot of clinching. He throws right hands, but there few and for between. Mostly it’s the jabbing and grabbing we’re seeing from Wladimir nowadays. But tonight Wladimir is facing a guy without any power who is there to be knocked out for Wladimir if he can just somehow come out of his mental shell and throw caution to the wind to let his hands go.

I know Wladimir’s loyal boxing fans don’t care whether he fights timidly or with aggression, they’re just happy to see him fight. But these fans should be hoping that Wladimir can win fights impressively, because it’ll increase his popularity and potentially lead to bigger fights. You can’t have a big fight if Wladimir is boring everyone to pieces and nobody cares about seeing him fight outside of Europe and small pockets of fans in the U.S and Canada.