By Allan Fox: After sitting out of action for the past six months due to injury related problems, WBO cruiserweight champion Krzysztof Glowacki (25-0, 16 KOs) will be looking to return to the ring in April against former IBF cruiserweight champion Steve Cunningham (28-7-1, 13 KOs) in a voluntary defense.
Glowacki, 29, won the WBO cruiserweight title last August with an 11th round stoppage win over former champion Marco Huck. Glowacki has been dealing with an injury to his left elbow and wrist, which required surgery to repair. He’s been rehabbing the problem since then. It’s only now that Glowacki is able to get ready to return to the ring.
Cunningham, #6, is Glowacki’s best option to face a notable fighter that isn’t completely dangerous. It’s still far from an easy fight though, because Cunningham has been fighting at heavyweight the last three years, and he’s going to be more than a handful now that he’s back down at cruiserweight where his power is more formidable.
If Glowacki can get past Cunningham in April, then his next fight will be against his World Boxing Organization mandatory challenger Oleksandr Usyk later in the year. That’s going to be a very difficult fight for Glowacki because Usyk has excellent punching power and size. He doesn’t leave himself open the way that Huck does.
“I’m still [a] quite man, always prefer to do more than talk about it,” Glowacki told RingTV.com. “Of course I have better financial situation and I’m much more recognizable. I had surgery, now I’m perfect, fit and ready to box! I ask my promoters at least one time per week.” the 29-year-old southpaw said eagerly.”
The 39-year-old Cunningham could be a real problem for Glowacki because he’s a sharp puncher and he’s got excellent size. Cunningham was held to a 12 round draw against Antonio Tarver last August in a fight that many fans felt that Cunningham had done enough to win. Before that, Cunningham had lost a controversial 12 round decision to Vyacheslav Glazkov in March of 2015. That was another fight that boxing fans felt that Cunningham deserved the decision.
Mikey Garcia believes he’ll show no signs of rust when he comes back
Former two division world champion Mikey Garcia (34-0, 28 KOs) insists that he won’t show any signs of ring rust when he eventually does return to the ring at some point. Garcia, 28, hasn’t fought since beating Juan Carlos Burgos by a 12 round decision in January 2014. Garcia has had promotional issues for the last two years, and it’s anyone’s guess when those problems will eventually be cleared up once for all.
“There is no rust, bro,” Mikey said to Fighthype. “I don’t see how anybody can say that I have rust. I’ve never been hurt and I’ve never been injured. I was never beaten up in the game because I was being pushed and stuff like that. I never got punished in fights. Some people say ‘he’s done. He’s done. It’s been over two years.’ When people see me come back, they’re not going to see anything different. They’re probably going to see a better fighter. Honestly, they haven’t seen the best I can do. I haven’t been pushed.”
It’s very unlikely that Mikey will ever be able to regain the form that he had before he stopped fighting. While some fighters are able to come back from a long layoff and not show signs of ring rust, most fighters do lose something. It’s too difficult to stay outside of the sport for more than two years without losing a significant amount of skills. Floyd Mayweather Jr. was able to stay out of the ring for a couple of years and come back without showing signs of having deteriorated. However, that’s Mayweather, and he’s just a naturally talented guy that was able to pick it back up without losing anything.
When Mikey does come back, he’s likely going to struggle if he moves up to the light welterweight division and starts trying to beat the best in that division. He last fought at super featherweight in 2014, but it’s not likely he’ll be able to return to that weight class. I doubt that he’ll even be able to fight in the lightweight division because he’s looking pretty big nowadays.
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