Klitschko makes right move and keeps his title

Wladimir Klitschko seemed intent on defending his heavyweight title with one hand, the left. He jabbed and jabbed and occasionally hooked Calvin Brock Saturday at Madison Square Garden.

Then the IBF champion was cut by an inadvertent head butt, and the blood trickling down the left side of his face told him it was time to throw the right. When that hand entered the fight, it was time for Brock to leave it.

Klitschko stunned Brock with a sharp left, then finished him with a thunderous right late in the seventh round.

“I should have tried that earlier, but it took me time to get my distance and rhythm,” Klitschko said. “He was a good defensive fighter.”

Klitschko kept the right in reserve as he piled up points with his jab. But he found the range with the right midway in the bout, and Brock had no chance when Klitschko opened up the challenger’s defense with another quick left. The big right immediately followed and Brock fell face-down to the canvas.

He got up at eight but was wobbly and referee Wayne Kelly stopped it at 2:10.

“I knew it was over there,” Klitschko said. “It was easy to hit him with the right hand there.”

Klitschko, in his first defense of the crown he won from Chris Byrd in April, was cut over the left eye in the sixth. Wary of the cut getting worse, he unloaded several massive punches late in the sixth and through the seventh round.

“I saw the punch coming,” Brock said, “but I couldn’t react fast enough.”

Earlier, Laila Ali, daughter of boxing great Muhammad Ali, stopped a thoroughly outclassed Shelley Burton at 1:58 of the fourth round to defend her WBC women’s super middleweight championship. A left-right combination smashed Burton’s nose and an eruption of blood fell to the canvas as referee Arthur Mercante Jr. stopped the bout.