By Jason Kim: Former two-division champion Tomasz Adamek (41-1, 27 KO’s) faces big 6’7” 250+ pound heavyweight Michael Grant (46-3, 34 KO’s) on Saturday night in a 12 round bout at the Prudential Center, in Newark, New Jersey. Adamek, 33, is taking on the 38-year-old Grant in an effort to see how he fairs against a big heavyweight with roughly the same size and dimensions as the Klitschko brothers. Adamek, 6’1 ½”, hopes to fight one of the Klitschko brothers next and fighting Grant, in theory, should help Adamek because he would know how to fight the equally big Klitschko brothers. On the other hand, Grant is nowhere near as talented as either of the Klitschko brothers and won’t really be able to give Adamek any kind of indication of the athleticism, power and overall boxing ability that the both of the Klitschko brothers will be bringing to the table when/if Adamek fights one of them.

As such, Adamek is probably wasting his time fighting Grant, because he could fight 100 Grants and still end up way over his head against the Klitschko brothers. They’re a lot better than Grant, and a lot better than Adamek. Of the two Klitschko brothers, Adamek would have a much better chance facing Vitali Klitschko, due to his slower movements and reaction times. However, Vitali is even taller than Wladimir at 6’7” compared to the 6’6” Wladimir, and would likely dominate the much shorter Adamek with ease just using a jab and short left hooks. Adamek was shook up a couple of times in his fight against Chris Arreola in his last fight in April, and that was against a tired Arreola who didn’t land that many punches.

Adamek would be getting hit a ton by both of the Klitschko brothers and would be getting hit a lot harder than he was in the Arreola fight. I think it’s interesting for Adamek’s Polish fans that he’s fighting Grant, because when he beats him on Saturday night, it will give Adamek’s fans a false sense that Adamek could thereby compete with the Klitschko brothers. Unfortunately, beating Grant doesn’t mean anything other than the fact that Adamek could be an aging fighter that was already exposed as being mediocre many years ago by Lennox Lewis, Jameel McCline and Dominick Guinn. All three of those heavyweights stopped Grant years ago.

I expect that Adamek will stop him as well, but this win will have no meaning because Adamek is like a Polish version of Sultan Ibragimov, the 6’1” undersized former WBO heavyweight champion that Wladimr Klitschko easily beat two years ago by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision in 2008. Ibragimov was too small and too weak to do anything with Wladimir. It will be the same with Adamek. He hasn’t carried his power up from the cruiserweight and he’s already showing problems taking the heavyweight shots.

He won’t be Wladimir or Vitali running around the ring all night long like he’s done in fights against Arreola and Jason Estrada. And his reach won’t be long enough to land shots from the outside. The only way Adamek will be able land is if he jumps in quickly to try and land punches. But if he does that against the Klitschko brothers, he will be facing heavy firepower on the way in and the way out. Hopefully, once Adamek is destroyed by one of the Klitschko brothers, he moves back down to cruiserweight and carries on his career down there. He can dominate at that weight, but heavyweight Adamek is just another contender and more fodder for the Klitschko brothers to beat up.