Tomasz Adamek Dominates Gary Gomez

By Boxing News - 07/13/2008 - Comments

adamek657457.jpgBy Jim Dower: Former light heavyweight champion, now fighting as a cruiserweight, Tomasz Adamek (35-1, 24 KOs) totally dominated a badly over-matched Gary Gomez (18-10-1, 7 KOs), eventually winning when Gomez quit on his stool after the end of the 6th round, complaining that he had broken his right hand and couldn’t continue. It just so happened that Gomez was taking a tremendous beating and wasn’t able to land hardly a glove on Adamek for the entire fight. The win was an important one for the number #1 ranked IBF cruiserweight contender Adamek, for it puts him in line for a bout with IBF cruiserweight champion Steve Cunningham.

Adamek, 31, was making his appearance since defeating O’Neil Bell by an 8th round TKO in April, a fight which cemented Adamek as the number #1 contender for Cunningham’s IBF cruiserweight title. Adamek had little problem with the short, round Gomez, who was too slow and predictable for Adamek and was nothing more than a large punching bag for him for the entire six-rounds of the fight.

At first, Gomez, 33, looked confident as he trudged forward, winging wild hooks, missing most of the time and taking blistering shots from Adamek with every step. Gomez was coming off an impressive performance against Jeremy Williams, though losing by an 8-round split decision. Perhaps it was the confidence from this fight that made Gomez fight so hard in the early going against Adamek. Whatever the case, Gomez didn’t have the boxing skills, the speed or the power to handle the much better skilled Adamek at any time in the fight.

In the first, Adamek moved well around the ring, hitting Gomez with an assortment of punches, sometimes jabs, sometimes right hands and sometimes left hooks. Gomez, however, fought hard continuously coming forward and trying to connect with his slow hooks. Some of the time, Gomez would land a shot or two, but mostly he hit nothing but air and was countered by the quicker and more elusive Adamek.

Seeing how disparate Gomez was trying to land, Adamek changed his tactics somewhat in the 2nd round, focusing more on using his jab to create distance between him and the plodding Gomez, who badly wanted to land some big shots judging by his huge hooks he was throwing – and missing. At midpoint of the round, Adamek began to move around the ring, showing incredible agility as he moved in a wide circle around Gomez, hitting him from every side with fast jabs without getting hit in return. Indeed, Adamek only appeared to get hit two times in the entire round, which seemed to cause Gomez to lose some of his confidence.

Adamek continued moving well in the 3rd round, jabbing well to the head, and landing quick left-right combinations to the body and head. Mostly, however, Adamek was content to land one shot at a time as it seemed to be the best policy to avoid getting him in return from Gomez. In spite of the fact that he was getting a boxing lesson from Adamek, Gomez still retained good power, perhaps as much or more than Adamek, which made him a fighter that Adamek didn’t want to get hit by too much if he would help it.

In the 4th round, Adamek began to throw short flurries to the head of Gomez, ripping the shots off quickly, the getting out of the way of Gomez when he would attempt to retaliate with his bigger, slower shots. Adamek wasn’t even trying to go to the body, even though Gomez presented an inviting target with his large midsection. Gomez continued loading up far too much with his shots, and partly because of that, he missed virtually every punch he threw in the round. He did finally land a couple of lefts in the waning minute of the round, but Adamek answered back each time with two left hands which seemed to take the victory out of Gomez’s rare accomplishment.

In the 5th and 6th rounds, Adamek stepped up the pace of his shots, dishing out huge punishment to Gomez and hitting him almost at will with left hands and straight rights. It was a steady stream of 1-2 combinations to the head of Gomez, and it looked almost too easy for Adamek, who looked like he was in a much higher class than the limited Gomez. For those who remember how well Gomez had looked against Jeremy Williams in his last fight, it was startling to see how easily Adamek dominated Gomez.

In the 6th round, Adamek turned it up to a higher gear, hitting Gomez much more frequently, and seemingly harder, than he had in the earlier rounds of the fight. It was clear that Gomez couldn’t take it for much longer, no matter how good his chin is. At the end of the round, Gomez looked dejected as he went back to his corner, as if badly disappointed with himself.

In between rounds, Gomez revealed that he had injured his right hand, possibly breaking it a round earlier in the fight. After receiving the bad news from Gomez, his trainer contacted the referee and asked that the fight be stopped. Referee Gerald Scott complied with Gomez’s corner helps wishes and stopped the fight at 0:01 of the 7th round.