By Nate Anderson: Heavyweight contender Tony Thompson (36-2, 24 KO’s) will get a second shot against IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (57-3, 50 KO’s) on July 7th in a big fight in Switzerland. It’s big for Thompson because it could be his last chance at landing a world title shot. It took Thompson four years to get a second title fight after he was stopped in the 11th round by Wladimir in 2008.

Thompson has won his last five fights since then but he’s not taken any risks at all whatsoever, facing pretty much nothing but easy B level fighters that were no real risk to beat him. It’s paid off for Thompson, but because of his poor opposition, it’s taken him longer than it would have had he faced A level fighters for a short period of time.

In hindsight, it was probably the smart thing for Thompson to do, because if he had fought guys like David Price, Denis Boytsov, Tyson Fury and Robert Helenius, Thompson would have likely been beaten by all of them. At least with the guys he’s faced, Thompson has kept winning and is now getting a 2nd world title shot for what it’s worth. Thompson, 6’5″, has no real chance of winning this fight despite being about as big as the 6’6″ Wladimir. The differences between the speed and power of Wladimir and him are too huge. Thompson isn’t much of a puncher and is slow of hand. He beats guys but mostly due to him being a lot bigger than them. It works when he’s the bigger guy, but it doesn’t when he’s on even terms in the size department.

In their fight in 2008, Thompson was able to find some success in landing his right hook and left hands against Wladimir. This was mostly because Wladimir wasn’t able to land his left hooks, and his jabs were mostly ineffective against Thompson because he was picking them off on his gloves. Wladimir’s powerful right hands were getting through and by the 10th round, Thompson was looking pretty beat up and tired from getting hit so much with them. In the 11th, knocked Thompson down with a right hand. Thompson was unable to beat the count and the fight was halted.

In the rematch, Wladimir will likely come out firing with big shots a lot earlier in the fight to try and get a quick stoppage.