By Sean McDaniel: 35-year-old heavyweight contender Tomasz Adamek (46-2, 28 KO’s) will be fighting the 6’4 1/2″ journeyman Travis Walker (39-7-1, 31 KO’s) on September 8th at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. Walker, 33, is probably going to need to pull out a KO win for him to have a chance at winning this fight.

You hate to see fights where one guy absolutely needs a knockout to win, but I see this as being one of those kinds of fights unfortunately. Walker doesn’t have the boxing skills to win a decision against Adamek, and he’s also fighting Adamek in his home city. Walker will have to really unload on Adamek if he wants to come out of there with a win.

Walker is an excellent puncher, and if he can connect with some big shots in the first five rounds, he could get Adamek out of there if he can last that long himself. Walker has a tendency to get knocked out himself when he’s hit hard, and Adamek no doubt will be trying to take advantage of that next month.

Adamek is following his proven formula of fighting 2nd tier heavyweights to try and get another quick title shot against one of the Klitschko brothers next year.

It already worked once with Adamek beating five 2nd tier heavyweights and one decent heavyweight contender in Chris Arreola to get a title shot against WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko last year in September. As you would expect, Adamek was badly exposed by the 6’7″ Vitali, who basically toyed with the shorter 6’2″ Adamek like a big cat playing with a mouse. It was not even close to being competitive, as Vitali did pretty much what he wanted until finally putting a beaten up Adamek out of his misery in the 10th. Adamek has quickly rebounded from that defeat, beating Nagy Aguilera and Eddie Chambers. The Chambers win was a controversial win for Adamek, as he appeared to lose that fight despite Chambers having injured his left arm early. Chambers was able to change stances from orthodox to southpaw frequently for the remainder of the night to both jab Adamek in the head and hit him with clean right hands. It was a masterful performance from Chambers and he clearly deserved to get the decision. Unfortunately, the judges saw differently and gave Adamek, who fighting home in Newark, New Jersey, a wide 12 round decision points victory.