By Dan Ambrose: IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimmir Klitschko (57-3, 50 KO’s) will be fighting another opponent that pretty much nobody wants to see him against when he faces 40-year-old Tony Thompson (36-2, 24 KO’s) on July 7th at the Stade de Suisse, in Berne, Switzerland.

I doubt that Wladimir is having sleepless nights worrying about boxing fans tuning him out because he’s not facing interesting opponents.

This is the second consecutive dull fight for Wladimir after having beaten 39-year-old former cruiserweight champion Jean-Marc Mormeck by a 4th round knockout last March. Thompson, 6’5″, is a lot better than Mormeck, but that’s not saying a whole lot because Mormeck wasn’t that good a fighter. He was good when he fought at cruiserweight but at heavyweight he’s looked terrible.

There are better options for Wladimir than just facing Mormeck and Thompson. Wladimir could fight Denis Boytsov, Kubrat Pulev, Marco Huck, Bermane Stiverne, and Mariusz Wach. I know I’d rather see Wladimir face one of those guys than seeing him destroy Thompson again for the second time.

The last time Wladimir fought Thompson, he had problems landing his left hands and jabs. Wladimir was able to hit him with right hands though, and that became his main weapon of choice. However, Wladimir wasn’t able to really put everything he had in the shots because he kept getting his punches picked off on the high gloves of Thompson.

Wladimir never really even attempted to throw left hooks, and I think he should have at least tried. Just throwing right hands made Wladimir really predictable and that hurt his chances of stopping Thompson early. Wladimir finally opened up with a flurry of shots in the 11th and was able to take Thompson out. It’s too bad Wladimir didn’t do that earlier in the fight because he could have made his work so much easier.