By Dan Ambrose: After working his way through a minefield of fringe heavyweight contenders, former two-division world champion Tomasz “Goral” Adamek (43-1, 28 KOs) is within striking distance of his title shot against one of the Klitschko brothers later on this year in a fight that will be taking place in Adamek’s native Poland.

But before he gets his reward with a big payday and a likely knockout loss to one of the Klitschkos, Adamek will first fight an easy tune-up against 6’6” 270 pound Kevin McBride (35-8-1, 29 KO’s) on April 9th at the Prudential Center, in Newark, New Jersey.

Adamek has taken flack for taking on a lot of soft opposition since moving up to the heavyweight division in 2009 with fights against an old Andrew Golota, Michael Grant, Vinny Maddalone and Jason Estrada. But McBride is perhaps the easiest of the bunch, because he’s not had much success since stopping Mike Tyson in 2005.

Heck, McBride has lost four out of his last five fights and that’s pretty bad. Usually when you get to the level where Adamek is at, you don’t take on fighters that are struggling as bad McBride. But that shows you how much Adamek doesn’t want to blow it and lose his chance for a big payday against one of the Klitschko.

The Grant fight likely was one of the reasons why Adamek has chosen a fighter as soft as McBride, because even though Grant was a B level fighter and someone Adamek should have easily beaten, he got staggered in that fight when Grant finally opened up with a few decent shots.

It wasn’t a good sign that Adamek will have any kind of chance against one of the Klitschko brothers. McBride has lost his power from moving up to the cruiserweight division and his chin doesn’t seem to be able to handle big shots too well. Adamek will likely be taken fast against the Klitschkos. He just doesn’t have the size, power or speed to win this fight. But Adamek will certainly beat McBride. At least he’ll get that win.