Assistant trainer Jamen Ali Bashir told The Associated Press today that the heavyweight champion broke his middle finger during his technical knockout of Lamon Brewster yesterday.

Klitschko iced his hand immediately after the match, and is now wearing a cast from his left hand up past his elbow, Bashir said before boarding an airplane at the Cologne airport.

"It will take eight weeks to heal," Bashir said.

Despite the injury, the Klitschko dominated. He landed several strong left jabs that largely went unanswered and in the sixth round, two massive left-right combinations rocked the American. Brewster's trainer, Buddy McGirt, stopped the fight before the seventh round could start and the big Ukrainian defended his IBF and IBO titles.

Both trainers said afterward that Klitschko would have knocked out Brewster in the seventh round.

The win made up for one of the most painful losses of Klitschko's career. When the two met in 2004, Brewster stopped Klitschko with a fifth-round TKO to win the vacant WBO championship in Las Vegas.

Klitschko dominated that fight early on and knocked down Brewster in the fourth round, but the American was saved by the bell. Two left hooks by Brewster in the fifth turned it around.

Brewster was returning from a yearlong layoff following a loss to Sergei Liakhovich in April 2006 during which he suffered a detached retina in his left eye that required surgery. The American returned to fight Klitschko without even a warmup bout.