By Erik Schmidt: In somewhat of an upset, Argentinean light heavyweight Mariano Nicolas Plotinsky (15-3, 8 KOs) stopped German Thomas Ulrich (31-5, 21 KOs) in the 11th round of scheduled 12 round bout to win the vacant WBO Inter-Continental light heavyweight title at the Freiberger Arena, in Dresden, Sachsen, Germany. Trailing in the fight, Plotinsky nailed Ulrich with a looping right hand in the 11th round, hurting Ulrich and sending him to the canvas.
While Ulrich was falling down, his face hit the left shoulder of Plotinsky which gave Ulrich a second bone jarring collision in a fraction of a second. After he hit the canvas, Ulrich just laid there on his back until he was counted out at 1:35 of the 11th.
In the same round, Plotinsky had been penalized one point for holding and hitting and it looked as if he was well on his way towards losing the fight. Although he outworked Ulrich in most of the rounds, Plotinsky’s punches were often wide of the mark and very sloppy looking.
His form was horrible and seemed to just be flailing his arms much of the time as he was someone that had been pulled off the street to fight Ulrich. Plotinsky’s poor form took away from the many punches he was landing, because Ulrich seemed to get the better of him with his more precise jabs and perfectly thrown combinations.
Neither puncher, however, had any power in their shots, and probably the only reason that Plotinsky was able to score a knockout was because Ulrich wasn’t expecting such a wide looping shot from Plotinsky. He should have because Plotinsky had been throwing wide looping shots for much of the fight, throwing some of the widest shots I’ve seen from a fighter.
Ulrich should have been able to take advantage of Plotinsky wild offense by drilling him up the middle with power shots. However, Ulrich’s power, never great to begin with earlier in his career, wasn’t hard enough to give Plotinsky any problems.
Plotinsky outworked Ulrich in the first three rounds with his nonstop punching. After the 3rd, Ulrich took over the fight landing straight punches down the middle. The rounds continued to be close, though, because Plotinsky wasn’t letting up with his shots. Ulrich fought especially well in rounds five and six, hitting Plotinsky as he would come wading in to try and land his wide hooks. Plotinsky was slowing down and looked very sloppy with his offense at this point.
By the 8th round, both fighters were looking really tired. Plotinsky wasn’t taking a backwards step, however, and continued to apply a lot of pressure. Ulrich was still able to get the better of him with straight shots down the middle as Plotinsky would come forward trying to land.
In the 10th round, Plotinsky started to really pour it on with his punches, badly outworking Ulrich and bloodying his nose. It looked as if Ulrich’s nose was broken because the bridge was swollen up badly at the top of his nose.
In the 11th, Plotinsky continued blasting away at Ulrich with punch after punch. However, Plotinsky made the mistake of grabbing Ulrich in a headlock and hit him with a right hand. The referee immediately stopped action and deducted one point from Plotinsky.
The penalization, however, didn’t slow Plotinsky down one bit, as he continued to go after Ulrich with abandon for the next minute, hitting him at will without much being thrown back from Ulrich.
Finally, Plotinsky landed a nice looking right hand that stunned Ulrich who then crashed downward towards the canvas, banging into Plotinsky’s left shoulder with his face as he was falling. The fight was then stopped at 1:35 of the 11th with Ulrich flat on his back.