By Scott Gilfoid: In one of IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko’s easiest title defenses of his career, he stopped a badly over-matched Australian heavyweight Alex Leapai (30-5-3, 24 KO’s) in the 5th round on Saturday night in a three knockdown performance at the Koenig Pilsener Arena, Oberhausen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. The 6’6″ Wladimir was barely touched in the fight by the much shorter and slower 6’0″ Leapai.

In the 5th, Wladimir knocked Leapai down twice with left-right combinations to the head. Leapai showed a lot of heart in getting back up from the first knockdown in the round, because he was badly hurt from that shot. I don’t know of too many heavyweights who would have gotten up from that.

Wladimir put Leapai down in the 1st round with a nice right hand to the head that put the heavy-bodied Leapai down in a heap on the canvas. Leapai got up and continued to take jabs and straight hands to the head.

The fight was frustrating to watch, though, because Leapai wasn’t even trying to throw any punches with any real knockout intent. It wasn’t until the 5th round that Leapai threw a punch with everything he had on it, and it just barely grazed Wladimir and sent him stumbling backwards. At that point WLadimir nailed Leapai with a huge right hand that staggered him.

Wladimir then followed up with a tremendous right hand that put Leapai down on the canvas. Leapai got up at the count of 6, but he was badly hurt and there was no way he was going to make it out of the round. Leapai didn’t even try to clinch. Wladimir then teed off on Leapai and stopped him with another right hand. This time Leapai was too hurt to beat the count, and the fight was subsequently halted by referee Eddie Cotton.

“I couldn’t get past the jab. That’s why he’s the champion. I just need to go back to the gym,” Leapai said.

Other boxing results on the card:

Joseph Parker TKO 7 Marcelo Luiz Nascimento

Oleksandr Usyk TKO 3 Ben Nsafoah