Adamek beats Grant in unconvincing fashion
On Saturday night in New Jersey Tomasz Adamek was able to continue his campaign for glory in the heavyweight division by winning a unanimous decision against contender Michael Grant. That withstanding, the fight created more questions than it answered, about the state of the division and Adamek among other things.
Adamek has shown dominance in both the light heavyweight and cruiserweight divisions by winning titles in each. In 42 fights, he boasts only one defeat, as a light heavyweight, in a decision bout to Chad Dawson in 2007. But as a heavyweight he has yet to prove he is the best of the division, nor that he will be able to give the division some much-needed life. Certainly Adamek has demonstrated he can defeat heavier fighters—Chris Arreola, Andrew Golota and now Grant—but we have yet to see what kind of effect these fights, all going the distance, will have on him.
Adamek now finds himself at the top of the line for a championship opportunity against the Klitschkos, though it is unlikely he’ll see a fight with either of them for the remainder of the year. WBO/IBF/IBO/Ring Magazine heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko will be taking on Samuel Peter on 11 September, and WBC champ Vitali has a date with veteran Shannon Briggs in October. Therefore he’ll have to wait, and it’s likely that promoter Kathy Duva will look to keep him busy in another contest or two in the coming months.
Against Grant Adamek was giving up 44lb (weighing in at 217lb) and it showed. While he out-boxed his massive opponent convincingly, the fact is that nothing he did is going to prove to anyone he’ll be able to take out the Klitschkos. Grant is about the size of either of those guys, minus the relevance and stamina and comfort in the ring. At times he looked like the veteran fighter he in fact was, not having had a relevant heavyweight fight in the last eight years up to Adamek.
It’s well known that Adamek is a crowd-drawing fighter, one of the biggest in the heavyweight division, and this is due to his ability to make entertaining fights. Grant was no different. Some 10,000 people lacked into the Prudential Center, which has become his home-base. For Adamek, it’s a good thing he draws crowds since it translates into a worthy business venture for the Klitschkos.
But whereas other light heavyweights and cruiserweights have successfully moved up to heavyweight and won titles in the past (Roy Jones Jr. being the obvious example), prospects don’t look anywhere as good for Adamek. That is, unless he’s content winning a subpar title hardly recognized by the world over as being an actual heavyweight one.
Ultimately this fight was more a case of a fighter losing a fight, rather than one winning it. Not to say that Adamek didn’t deserve the win. He methodically outboxed the bigger man. But Grant let the first six rounds go to the cards without opening up, and when he did, especially towards the later rounds, it was clear the end result would have been different had he done so earlier. His power rubbed off on Adamek’s face, who was cut twice. On the other hand, despite looking fatigued, Grant hardly looked touched, an indication that Adamek has lost much of the power moving up he utilized so well in other divisions.
In the 12th round Grant finally opened up and seriously hurt Adamek, but Adamek managed to hold on until the final bell. The fact that Grant was able to legitimately hurt Adamek, while the latter won the fight on points and not by inflicting the hurt, shows that Adamek has lost his steel chin that set him apart from others at light heavy. He’ll have to go back to the drawing board and come up with something else if he wants to beat a Klitschko.
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