(Photo credit: Wende) By Allan Fox: Tonight unbeaten heavyweight contender Kubrat Pulev (17-0, 9 KO’s) will get a chance to prove whether he actually deserves a title shot against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko when he faces Tony Thompson (38-3, 26 KO’s) in a scheduled 12 round bout at the Sport and Congress Center, Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany.
Pulev, 32, has been saying that none of the heavyweight contenders want to fight him, but the 6’5” Thompson has stepped up to face him. Pulev will now have to prove that he can beat his first quality opponent of his career. Up until now, Pulev’s German handlers have been extremely careful with the opponents he’s been put in with.
In a way, Pulev has been matched a lot like German based heavyweight contender Manuel Charr. Pulev has wins over Alexander Ustinov, Alexander Dimitrenko, Michael Sprott, Travis Walker, Derric Rossy, and Dominick Guinn. Pulev has beaten them all, but none of those fighters are major players in the heavyweight division, and his Pulev’s German handlers might have made a huge mistake in pushing him so quickly from those 2nd tier guys to face a fighter as good as Thompson.
Pulev needs more work on his power, and he could get badly exposed tonight by Thompson much in the way that David Price was when he was recently put in with him.
Thompson recently stopped the heavily hyped British heavyweight David Price in consecutive knockouts. In a lot of ways, Price is a better heavyweight than Pulev, because he can punch with both hands as well jab. Thompson was able to take away Price’s power and force him into a war that ended with Price getting knocked out in the 5th round last July.
A loss for Pulev would be a disaster for him, because he’s not that young at 32, and he doesn’t have the look of a heavyweight that is going to be able to fight at a high level in his mid to late 30s.
This is kind of a now or never situation for Pulev, because if he can’t get his payday fight against Wladimir now, he could get passed by against much better punchers like Deontay Wilder, Bermane Stiverne and David Haye.
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