By William Mackay: In early action in tonight’s title fight between challenger Dereck Chisora and WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko at the Olympiahalle in Munich, Germany, British featherweight Stephen Smith (13-1, 7 KO’s) stopped Arpad Vass (7-3, 5 KO’s) in the 1st round of a blowout mismatch.

Smith, a former British and Commonwealth featherweight champion, had lost his last fight by an 8th round TKO to Lee Selby last September. But Smith did a lot better tonight against his overmatched opponent. Smith’s next fight qill be against Ben Jones on March 2nd.

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In junior welterweight action, Serhiy Fedchenko (30-1, 13 KOs) easily beat Laszlo Fazekas (8-1-1, 6 KOs) by an eight round unanimous decision in a one-sided fight from start to finish.

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NABF heavyweight champion Johnathon Banks (28-1-1, 18 KOs) successfully defended his strap tonight with an incredibly boring 12 round unanimosu decision win over journeyman Nicolai Firtha (20-10-1, 8 KOs). The final judges’ scores were 120-108, 119-109, 119-109. Neither guy looked good. Banks doesn’t have the size for a heavyweight and struggled against an opponent that the better heavyweights would have likely destroyed.

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WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitchko (44-2, 40 KO’s) fought impressively in winning a hard fought 12 round unanimous decision over a game but limited Dereck Chisora (15-3, 9 KO’s). Vitali appeared to have injured his left hand early or possibly he came into the fight with a hurt left, as he rarely used his jab or left hand at all in the fight. The judges scores were 118-110, 118-110 and 119-111, all for Vitali.

After the bout, Vitali hinted that he had injured it but wouldn’t come out directly and say it was injured. No doubt, Vitali wanted to avoid sounding like he was making excuses the same way that former WBA heavyweight champion David Haye made excuses about an injured toe after his loss to Vitali’s brother IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko last July.

Chisora fought well but didn’t throw enough punches and seemed too committed to tossing wild haymaker shots that often came up short. He landed quite a few, though, due to Vitali’s limited mobility and his tendency to stand in place. Chisora’s best work was when he was landing to the body of Vitali. However, Chisora couldn’t win enough rounds on landing body punches alone and ended up getting dominated.