Klitschko: Thompson victory

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Wladimir Klitschko recovered from a slow start to knock out Tony Thompson in the 11th round to retain his WBO and IBF world heavyweight titles in Hamburg.

The big Ukrainian was in some trouble early on as a clash of heads with the American challenger opened up a cut above the eye of Klitschko in the second round.

Klitschko soon asserted himself though from the fourth round onwards and began to land his shots with increasing regularity.

Both men hit the deck in the 10th round after Klitschko tripped up Thompson, and the American took his time to recover from the fall.

The next round was to be the last and after a series of punches a straight right sent Thompson tumbling to the canvas.

Thompson just failed to make the count to lose his challenge in the penultimate round of the scheduled 12-round contest.

Klitschko's hard-fought victory was his first fight back in his adopted home of Hamburg in eight years and was his first defence of the WBO crown he won by beating off Russia's Ruslan Ibragimov in February in New York.

It was a 51st win of his career for Klitschko and a second defeat in 33 fights for Thompson, and the champion is now likely to face Russia's Alexander Povetkin, the number one IBF challenger, in November.