By Eric Thomas: The winner of the December 22nd fight between Steven Cunningham (25-4, 12 KO’s) and 35-year-old Tomasz Adamek (47-2, 29 KO’s) in their #2 IBF heavyweight eliminator bout will then have to fight unbeaten #1 IBF Kubrat Pulev (17-0, 9 KO’s) in a final IBF eliminator bout to determine who will be the fighter that will become the mandatory challenger for IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, says Kathy Duva of Main Events, who promotes Adamek.

Adamek wants to get another shot against one of the Klitschko brothers after having been beaten badly by WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko last year in a 10th round stoppage loss in September. Adamek arguably didn’t do a whole lot to get the fight with Vitali in the first place other than beating Jason Estrada, Andrew Golota, Kevin McBride, and injured Chris Arreola, Vinny Maddalone, and Michael Grant. Arreola was really the only tough opponent out of that bunch, and Adamek’s win over him was slightly tainted because Arreola broke his left hand in the 2nd round of that fight and had to fight with mostly his right hand the rest of the way.

Adamek is now trying to get a second shot against one of the Klitschko brother, and he’s off to a quick start with a controversial win over Eddie Chambers, a stoppage victory against Travis Walker and a decision over Nagy Aguilera. Beating Steve Cunningham won’t prove much because he’s only fought once at heavyweight and that was against a journeyman in Jason Gavern. But at least Adamek will have to fight one good heavyweight in unbeaten Kubrat Pulev if he’s to get another title shot, and I think Adamek is going to have a lot of problems against Pulev unless we see more of the questionable judging that we saw in Adamek’s win over Eddie Chambers. Pulev, 6’4 1/2″, is big enough to beat Adamek soundly enough to where it won’t even be a close fight. His jab is out of this world, and he’s got excellent since.

Pulev is a legit heavyweight and not just a pumped up light heavyweight like Adamek. I see that as being a very hard fight for Adamek and one that he might not be able to win apart from another controversial decision. Adamek will probably beat Cunningham, because this guy has no business fighting at heavyweight. Cunningham lost two out of his last three fights at cruiserweight, and now he’s moving up to heavyweight. That’s not how you move up in weight. Fighters usually move up when they’ve proven they can dominate at a lower level, and Cunningham definitely wasn’t dominating when he moved up.

The Cunningham vs. Adamek II fght will be taking place at the Sands Casino Resort, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA. This is hometown advantage for the 36-year-old Cunningham, but I still don’t expect it to be much of any help for him. Adamek has been fighting at heavyweight for a long time now and he’s much more comfortable at this weight compared to Cunningham.