By Dan Ambrose: IBF North American heavyweight champion Tomasz Adamek (46-2, 28 KO’s) is hoping that he’ll be fighting for a world title in 2013 against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko within two fights time. Adamek, 35, first has to defeated journeyman Travis Walker (39-7-1, 31 KO’s) in an IBF eliminator for #2-spot on September 8th, and then one more fight next year for the #1 mandatory spot.

Adamek said “After I win this fight [against Walker] and then the next fight, I hope to get title fight next year.”

One would hope that Wladimir will at least put off the Adamek fight until 2014, so that we don’t keep seeing Adamek fighting for world titles and getting smashed by one Klitschko after another in one-sided fights. We already saw Adamek completely dominated by WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko last year in a 10th round stoppage loss that was so one-sided that it was boring to watch. Adamek worked his way into that spot by mainly facing older heavyweights that were past their prime rather than dangerous guys. Adamek is now working his way back to another title fight facing less than dangerous opponents once again. His opponent for September 8th, 33-year-old Walker, can punch but he’s very flawed and has problems with both his stamina and his ability to take shots. Adamek should be able to win this fight if he can avoid getting hit with anything too big from Walker.

Adamek is lucky that he didn’t lose his last fight against Eddie Chambers last June because a lot of boxing fans felt that Adamek should have lost that fight. Chambers was hitting Adamek at will with right hands while fighting with only that hand after injuring his left biceps muscle earlier in the evening.

If Adamek can get past Walker, it would be great to see Adamek fight someone that is actually ranked in the top 10 rather than a journeyman level opponent for him to get another title shot. I’d like to see Adamek fight someone like Kubrat Pulev or Tyson Fury to really earn the shot against Wladimir, but somehow I have a feeling that it’s going to be another beatable 2nd tier journeyman level opponent that Adamek can beat without much trouble. The bad thing is when you get a fighter that gets title shots off of wins like the ones that Adamek has been piling up it leads to terrible mismatches when the fighter gets a title shot and is hopelessly out of his class the way that Adamek was against Vitali.