Tomasz Adamek’s dawn a false one
With the fate of the heavyweight division dropped from the hands of David Haye, IBF champion Tomasz Adamek looked set to collect the spilt opportunity and make a glorious break for the touchline. Sadly a hard-worked performance against Michael Grant on Saturday night suggests that the Pole may not be up to the task.
Like Haye, Adamek is a former cruiserweight champion and also like the British pugilist Adamek intends to use speed and skill to make an impact in the land of the giants. Yet question marks always remain whether fighters such as these can step up into the unlimited class and take their full skill set with them. On this showing Adamek is going to struggle against the bigger fighters.
For sure it was a spirited performance by man-mountain Grant, but the American is supposed to be diet Klitschko, a dress rehearsal before the full performance. The Pole came through victorious, but it was far from convincing, a 12th-round points decision against a man who got found out 10 years ago against Lennox Lewis.
The biggest fear with “Goral” is he is too small. There are not many people who nudge over 6ft 2in that you would describe as short, but against the 6ft 7in specimen that is Grant, Adamek looked like he was looking for his brothers, Dopey, Grumpy and Doc.
Of course this wasn’t a revelation to Adamek. He has been working hard since going up to the heavyweights, increasing the standard of his opposition from Andrew Golota to Chris Arreola via Jason Estrada. Grant was his first man mountain though, a good acid test in terms of build but certainly not skill and Adamek just about scraped through.
The IBF champ can reflect on a fight that he was always in control, he just failed to dominate and when you consider the level of opposition he should have really been aiming for a more emphatic victory if he is looking towards the elite level.
Straight off from the bell Adamek had his left jab going well and had the better of the opening two rounds. They were largely without incident bar a comedic grope and roll moment at the end of the first and a stinging left hook at the end of the second that rocked Grant.
Predictably Adamek gave up the centre of the ring to buzz about the outside and try and pick Grant off, but the American wasn’t here to make up the numbers and thundered in a few straights in the middle rounds culminating in the wobbling of Goral in the fourth and the sixth. Yet Adamek showed his class with some vicious left jabs in the seventh as he finally started to give an indication as to why he is worrying the top tier.
It was a slight surprise to see the busy Polish star cut for the first time in his career, over his left eye in the eighth, but he dealt with it well and got his revenge next round when he trickled claret out the mouth of Grant.
It was pretty straight forward from there on in with Adamek digging deep, staying on his toes and grinding out the victory, despite a late flurry by Grant in the last round.
The judges gave scores of 118-110, 118-111 and 117-111, unanimous in Adamek's direction but there’s no doubt that he would have gone home knowing he’d been in a fight and maybe considering how he will fell a Klitschko.
Grant hasn’t done anything relevant for a decade and is very much second tier, had Adamek gone in there and wiped the floor with him then the Pole would be being hailed as the future of the unlimited weight division. After this bout you get the feeling that against the jabbing Ukrainians he wouldn’t stand a chance. He has a solid chin and fast hands, but he won’t be able to out grind the grinding out kings.
It’s still worth sticking him in though. If Shannon Briggs and Audley Harrison are getting shots at the champs, Adamek more than deserves one to. This was only one fight and you never know, anything that may shake up the division is worth a shot.
Perhaps he may have come away thinking he’d rather a crack at Haye instead. “The Hayemaker” would be a much more suited opponent and the two former cruiserweights can battle it out for the honour of being the best small heavyweight in a fight of skill and speed.
Of course for that to happen someone would have to get Haye to actually agree to a fight.
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