By Eric Thomas: 35-year-old former two division world champion Tomasz Adamek (46-2, 28 KO’s) will be facing American Travis Walker (39-7-1, 31 KO’s) on Saturday night in a scheduled 12 round bout to be televised on WealthTV at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.

#4 IBF, #9 WBC, Adamek is hoping to get another title shot in the next year, so he’s going to need as many wins over journeyman/fringe level opposition that he can get in order to get a 2nd shot – and 2nd big payday – at a heavyweight world title. Adamek already got a crack last year against WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko last September, and failed badly in the fight, getting stopped in the 10th round.

It wasn’t even competitive. It just looked like a short, slow guy running around on the outside getting speared by hard jabs and right hands for 10 rounds by Vitali. It was just painful to watch, because it was so one-sided. Adamek might have been weeded out if he had fought a good contender going into the fight with Vitali, but Adamek played it safe, fighting and beating guys like Kevin McBride, Vinny Maddalone, Jason Estrada, Michael Grant and Andrew Golota in mismatches.

Adamek has won his last couple of fights since the loss to Vitali, beating Nagy Aguilera and Eddie Chambers. The win over Chambers was a controversial one. It sure looked like Adamek deserved a loss in that fight, because he was dominated by the one-armed Chambers for all 12 rounds despite Chambers fighting only with his right hand after injuring his left early in the fight.

Walker, 33, has the right hand power to stop Adamek with a single shot if he can land his punches. Adamek won’t make it easy for him, at least early on. You can expect Adamek to run around the ring trying to keep out of range of Walker’s right hand. Adamek will come in close to land a shot every now and then, but he’ll scurry away to try and win rounds.