By Allan fox: Cuban heavyweight Odlanier Solis (20-1, 13 KO’s) weighed in on Friday for his fight tomorrow night against two-time title challenger Tony Thompson (38-4, 6 KO’s) in Istanbul, Turkey. Solid weighed in at 257 lbs, which is a fairly slim weight for him. He’s been as high as 271 during his career, which is around 40 lbs too much for him given his short 6’1″ height. Solis was perfect as an amateur in weighing 200 lbs in 2004 before coming over to the U.S and quickly piling on a lot of weight.
Thompson weighed in at 266.5 lbs. That’s around the same weight he’s been at since his two fights with David Price. Thompson is a lot better in the mid-240s compared to him in the 260s. He seems to have good power in the 260s, but his stamina isn’t as good. In his last fight against Kubrat Pulev last year in August, Thompson gave Pulev a lot of problems for the first 6 rounds of the fight. But in the last half of the fight, Thompson really gassed out and Pulev was then able to jab his way to a 12 round decision.
Both Thompson and Solis have been knocked out by a Klitschko. Solis was stopped in the first round by former WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko in 2011. Thompson was twice knocked out by Wladimir Klitschko in stoppage losses in 2004 and 2008.
The 6’5″ Thompson will have a big height and reach advantage over the 6’1″ Solis. However, the speed and the power advantage is with Solis. He’s still pretty fast, but he’s definitely lost some speed at 33. He’s not where he was back in 2009 that’s for sure.
Solis can’t afford to lose this fight if he wants to get another crack at a title. He’s not been fighting often since his loss to Vitali, and his opposition has been underwhelming to say the least. Solis could have put himself back at the top quickly if he had started facing good opposition following his loss to Vitali, but he’s not done this. He’s had fights against Konstantin Airich, Leif Larsen and Yakup Saglam. Those are the type of opponents that Solis should have gotten out of the way in his 1st year as a pro, not in his 6th year. He’s too old to be wasting time on C level opposition.
Solis and Thompson will be fighting for the vacant WBC International heavyweight title.
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