Klitschko destroys Pianeta

By Boxing News - 05/04/2013 - Comments

wlad43By Jim Dower: In a dreadful mismatch, IBO/IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (60-3, 51 KO’s) made easy work of a badly over-matched Francesco Pianeta (28-1-1, 15 KO’s) in the 6th round tonight at the SAP Arena in Mannheim, Germany.

Wladimir put Pianeta down three times in the fight, once in the 4th, 5th and a final time in the 6th. Wladimir finished Pianeta off with a left, right, left combination that sent Pianeta down on the canvas badly hurt.

To his credit, Pianeta staggered to his feet but the fight was stopped after the referee saw how hurt Pianeta was.

The fight was incredibly one-sided from the start with Wladimir holding out his left arm way in front of him to keep Pianeta from getting close to him. Wladimir took his time jabbing and nailing Pianeta with hard right hands. Pianeta took the shots real well until the 4th when he was knocked down from a jab to the head followed by a hard right hand to the head. Pianeta never saw the right hand that hit him because of the jab that came before it. Wladimir really loaded up with that shot and Pianeta wasn’t expecting the sudden surge in power from the 6’6″ Ukrainian.

In the 5th, Wladimir nailed Pianeta down with a short left hook to the head that sent Pianeta down in a delayed reaction. Wladimir showed no real urgency to try and finish Pianeta off after the knockdown and it looked like he was carrying him a little looking for a one or two punch knockout rather than trying to overwhelm him with punches.

You can make an argument that Wladimir could have halted Pianeta in the 1st round had he pushed hard and threw a flurry of hard shots, but he didn’t really start to throw hard punches until the 4th round. Up until then, Wladimir’s trainer Johnathan Banks had told him to throw fast shots instead of hard ones. When Wladmir changed the power on his shots in the 4th, Pianeta didn’t look ready for that kind of power coming from Wladimir. From that point on, Pianeta was reeling and just looking to survive.

Other boxing action on the card:

Mike Perez UD 10 Travis Walker
Christina Hammer UD 10 Zita Zatyko



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