(Photo Wende) By Scott Gilfoid: It looks like unbeaten Bulgarian heavyweight Kubrat Pulev (18-0, 9 KO’s) wasn’t altogether pleased with his 12 round unanimous decision win over 41-year-old Tony Thompson (38-4, 26 KO’s) in Germany last Saturday night. Pulev won the fight by the scores of 116-112, 118-110, and 117-111.
However, he looked far from impressive. You can really say that the only reason Pulev won the fight was because Thompson got tired. I had Thompson winning the first four rounds, as did many other boxing fans who saw the fight.
The win now makes the 6’4 ½” Pulev the mandatory challenger for IBF heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, but Wladimir did a lot better job in beating Thompson than Pulev did. Pulev had to struggle to win; whereas Wladimir crushed Thompson in 6 rounds last year in July in their 2nd fight together.
Pulev said this to Bugaria Today as quoted by Fightnews.com “I wasn’t at my best. I believe I can do better. I wasn’t relaxed enough because I was out of the ring for 10 months. This was the reason, but for the world fight I’ll prepare better.”
I honestly can’t see any difference between the ways Pulev fought against Thompson compared to how he fought against Alexander Ustinov and Alexander Dimitrenko. The only difference I could see was that Pulev was in with a much better fighter who knew how to nullify Pulev’s best weapon, his jab. Without the ability to land his jab on a frequent basis like he had in the Dimitrenko and Ustinov fights, Pulev was forced to throw power shots.
As we saw, Pulev didn’t have any power to speak of, and he looked horrible when he’d throw wild right hands. He didn’t have any kind of left hand, so it was just wild right hands, but without power. It was horrible to look at knowing that this guy will be soon facing Wladimir Klitschko. I’m tired of seeing Wladimir involved with mismatches, and I’m ready to see him fight someone good with a chance to beat him like Deontay Wilder.
I saw enough of Pulev in the Thompson to know that he’s just going to be another fodder opponent for Wladimir. At least when Wladimir fought Mariusz Wach, the Polish fighter had some power to keep Wladimir honest. Pulev doesn’t have any power whatsoever, and this is going to be a royal massacre of the first order.
As for Pulev’s excuse that he wasn’t in top form for the Thompson fight, I don’t buy it for a second. This was Pulev doing the best he can, and he was barely good enough to beat an exhausted Thompson after losing the first four rounds against him.
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