Vitali Klitschko successfully kept his WBC heavyweight belt after beating Dereck Chisoro on Saturday before a sell-out crowd of 12,500 at the Olympiahalle in Munich, Germany, via unanimous decision. The judges scored the fight 118-110, 118-110 and 119-111.

The 40-year old Ukrainian(44-2, 40 KOs) convincingly outfought the the much younger Zimbabwean-British challenger despite apparently having some difficulty with his left hand. After the bout, he said, “It was not a perfect performance…. I fought against him with just a right hand (but) I’m not ready to talk about it. It’s not excuses because I really wanted to knock him out very much. But, anyway, it was a good performance from Chisoro. He had good movement. It was very difficult to hit him. He was in good condition for 12 rounds. I saw every punch from him though, he was a bit slow. If he was faster I would have had a problem.”

Klitschko, who stands some 15 centimeters taller than Chisoro, used his reach advantage to dominate the early rounds. Failing to land the decisive blows and perhaps beginning to tire, he used his vast ring experience to secure the closing rounds by outpointing the 28-year old challenger. It was only the fourth time in his long career that Klitschko had to go the 12-round distance.

As for the unpopular Chisoro, he said, “The only thing that beat me was experience. I came to fight. Experience beat me. I couldn’t really let some of my shots go, I forgot to jab. I wasn’t really looking for big shots. I was looking to work inside. He won the fight fair enough.”

Chisoro, as he promised before the bout, took the fight to the taller and bigger titleholder, never letting up on the pressure and marching head on straight through the punches. He effectively used a peek-and-boo defense with his gloves tight at his ears to get in close range with Klitschko. He now has a record of 1 win against 3 losses.

Chisoro was loudly booed by the German fans for his pre-fight antics. At the customary stare down after the weigh in, he unexpectedly slapped Klitschko with his right hand across the face. Then, before the bout, he spat water at his opponent’s face. Said he, “They can boo me, I don’t mind as long as they paid money to come and watch a sport I so love.”

To that, Klitschko said, “I have respect for Chisoro as a fighter, but not as a human. He sat a bad example for boxing and all fighters. He came from Great Britain but he is not a gentleman.”