(Photo credit: Team Sauerland) By Eric Thomas: American heavyweight Tony Thompson (38-3, 26 KO’s) has a chance to lock himself in for another world title shot against IBF/IBO/WBO/WBA heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko if Thompson can beat undefeated Bulgarian heavyweight Kubrat Pulev (17-0, 9 KO’s) this Saturday night on August 24th in their IBF heavyweight eliminator bout at the Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany.
Thompson, 41, is going to have to really impress to get the win in this fight, because Pulev is considered the home fighter in this one due to his German promoters. Thompson may need to get a knockout to ensure that he gets out of the ring with a win, because there’s a possibility he could lose this one by a controversial decision.
Thompson has been facing big punchers in David Price and Wladimir in the last year, and it’s going to be a much different fight against Pulev. He’s not a big puncher like Wladimir or Price. Instead, Pulev relies almost exclusively on his jab, which is a very good weapon.
Pulev is like a bigger version of Kevin “King pin” Johnson in that his only weapon is his jab. If Thompson can take Pulev’s jab away by standing close, to him and landing short punches, Pulev won’t stand a chance. Pulev has no ability to fight on the inside, and he can’t crack an egg with his power punches. With Pulev, it’s all about his jab.
Pulev will likely do a lot of holding whenever Thompson gets inside his jab. Pulev didn’t used to hold a lot earlier in his career, but in the last year he’s added that to his arsenal. It almost looks like Pulev has copied Wladimir with his tendency to hold a lot.
Pulev does this because it keeps him from getting hit a lot, and the referees then pull him and his opponents apart and reset them at a distance where Pulev can resume jabbing. The way for Thompson to defeat this is to hit Pulev while being held in the clinches. There’s no rule that you can’t fight while being held onto by one opponent, and Pulev could find out the hard way that clinching might not work against Thompson.
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