Photo credit: Mike Gladysz – By Jim Dower: This is supposed to be Tomasz Adamek’s moment to shine tonight against former heavyweight title challenger 38-year-old Michael Grant (46-3, 34 kO’) at the Prudential Center, Newark, New Jersey. Adamek is expected to win and win big in an effort to make him look like a more appealing opponent for the Klitschko brothers. Undersized for a heavyweight at only 6’1 ½”, Adamek has to look good against the aging 6’7” Grant if he wants to drum up interest for a fight against one of the Klitschko brothers in the near future.

However, Adamek looked shaky at times in his last fight against an overweight Chris Arreola and was staggered a number of times by Arreola before Chris faded from fatigue and injure to his left hand. Grant can punch a little and has no pressure on him whatsoever in this fight. Grant has a small chance of pulling off an upset if he can land one of his big right hands at some point in the fight and take Adamek out. In that case, it could be Grant who would be facing one of the Klitschko brothers instead of the smaller Adamek and that would make for a somewhat interesting fight due to the similar sizes between Grant and the 6’6” Wladimir Klitschko and 6’7” Vitali Klitschko.

Adamek is going to be careful against Grant and will stay out of range until he thinks he’s got him where he wants him. Look for Adamek to use a lot of his in and out attacks, and a lot of movement to try and confuse Grant. Adamek likes to circle constantly and make his bigger opponents shift their feet to have to keep up with his movements. Grant has the advantage in that his reach is 11” inches longer than Adamek’s, and he could in theory give the Polish fighter a lot of problems if he was to pump out a jab all night long.

However, Grant never seemed to learn how to throw a solid jab and mostly just paws with it. It’s really too bad because with his long reach of 86” compared to the 75” of Adamek”, Grant could dominate with that weapon alone if he had developed it properly. Instead, Grant is going to have to try and rely on his right power and hope that he can catch Admaek with a big shot and stun him. Arreola had Adamek hurt, but did a poor job of following up with other big shots to finish him. When Arreola had Adamek hurt, he often smothered his own punches by crowding him and missed out on big opportunities to finish him.

Unless Grant can land a huge punch and take Adamek out, he’s going to wind up getting dominated in this fight. Adamek is a lot better fighter and much more technical. Grant has a chance because Adamek is an undersized heavyweight and really hasn’t taken on some of the better fighters in the division yet. Grant has to go for the kill immediately because the longer this fight lasts the more likely it will be that Adamek comes out the winner.