Tomasz Adamek v Michael Grant preview
In the last few weeks the heavyweight division’s world champions David Haye and the Klitschko brothers have all been lining up comedy opposition to defend their titles against.
One man who has been overlooked by the trio is Tomasz Adamek, who defends his own IBF title against Michael Grant tomorrow night.
While the trio of world champions have looked towards the likes of Audley Harrison and Shannon Briggs for easy wins, there is method to Adamek’s madness. “Goral” is fighting a big heavyweight, 6ft 7in, long reach and a proficient jabber, sounds familiar doesn’t it? This bout should very much be viewed as a dry run before the slick Pole takes a run at one of the Ukrainian giants.
Like Haye, Adamek is quite small for a heavyweight, having cut his teeth in the lighter divisions. He has good footwork, fast hands, a decent chin and is an exciting fighter to watch. It’s fair to say Goral has been going about his heavyweight career in a sensible way since moving up to the unlimited division in late 2009. So far he has scored three solid victories over Andrew Golota, Jason Estrada and Chris Arreola and is fighting off a record of 41-1-0 with 27 KO’s. However at 33 years old Adamek wants to be pushing towards the top fighters in this weight class sooner rather than later.
Although a bout against Haye would be hugely popular among the large Polish community in Britain, it would effectively be two big cruiserweights fighting for a heavyweight title. It would certainly be an exciting match-up between two slicksters, but chances are the two won’t meet for the time being or at least until one of them does take on a Klitschko. It does look like the Adamek is leaning towards one of the big Ukrainians and should he put on a barnstorming show here expect one of them to come knocking.
You can see the thinking in throwing Grant as a warm-up before a possible Klitschko bout, but the comparisons end with the dimension really because “Big” is nowhere near the class of Vitali and Wladimir. He is a beast of a man with a huge reach, but flawed as an all-round fighter. His defence is lacking and he has been found wanting against all the better fighters he has come across. The biggest fight of career was his WBC, IBF, IBO world champion tilt against Lennox Lewis in 2000 which he lost, badly. A second-round KO brought an end to a night when Grant was knocked all over the place by the British fighter. Since then defeats to Jameel McCline and Dominick Guinn have come in amongst a career fighting also-rans.
This is the classic little slickster v big slugger combination, with Adamek by far the better boxer in terms of skill and technique. Most likely Adamek will try and get in tight, slip under those big long arms and throw uppercuts and quick combinations to the head and body of Grant.
The American will probably plod around for a bit looking for an opportunity to throw a bomb, but like a slug crossing the M4, the chance will never come. In many of his fights Grant has been shown a lack of balance and no doubt Adamek will look to exploit that, Big’s one dimensional style will almost certainly end up costing him any real chance against the Polish speedster.
This fight is being billed as “The Big Challenge” but while Grant is certainly big, the challenge element maybe lacking for Adamek who should walk to victory.
Prediction: Adamek sixth-10th round KO
You have to favour the smaller man here who is just a far more talented fighter than the veteran Grant.
If Grant gets his jab going early he may be able to keep Adamek at bay and stop him getting inside and throwing his vicious combinations, but he won’t be able to do it for long and inevitably the little Pole will nip in and start doing his thing.
There is a slim chance that Adamek will struggle with Grant’s size and the big man will manage to hold on and go the distance, but that would reflect very badly on Adamek and his title hopes. He needs to show he can dispatch Grant and dispatch him well.
Realistically this fight won’t go past 10 rounds at the very most.
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