Steve Cunningham knows just how good Tomasz Adamek is from personal experience and is giving the Polish heavyweight hopeful a solid chance to spring an upset this weekend against Chris Arreola. “It’s a 50-50 fight. Adamek should come out with a win,” says the former IBF Cruiserweight champ who lost a narrow decision to Adamek over a year ago. “If he slugs with Arreola – it’s heavyweight and I don’t think Adamek’s power has transferred over to heavyweight, that it was at light heavyweight and cruiser. And Arreola is 6-4, he’s a big guy. If he slugs with Arreola it might be an early night for Adamek. But Adamek can outbox him. If he can do that, I see him coming away with the victory.”
I asked Cunningham why is it so difficult to fight Adamek, who has only lost once (to lefty Chad Dawson) and if he is a tricky fighter to deal with? He answers: “There’s nothing tricky about him. He’s a basic, plain and simple fighter. It’s just his chin. In my fight I was hitting him with everything and I was like, Hey, he’s bound to fall. So just keep going, keep going. And it didn’t happen. He can be outboxed but I don’t think Arreola can outbox him. Arreola’s not able to do it. Tomasz can totally be outboxed and that was my downfall. I slugged with him. But with the early knockdowns in round two and four I felt I had to get mine. Because the way these judges judge a fight nowadays, you can’t just coast to a victory. So even being champion I felt I had to get in there and pick it up with him. Truthfully, I thought I won the fight. I thought it was nothing more than a draw.”
Regarding Adamek’s power at cruiserweight, Cunningham reveals, “It’s obviously good. Those punches – I wasn’t in pain – they were flash knockdowns. Hey, I’ll take it. If I can hit you and you go down and get right back up, I’ll take it. He’s got decent power. He’s got power that, I mean, you don’t want to play with. But like I said, he’s there to be hit and beat up. If you can withstand moving and jabbing and boxing and putting it together, you can make him look very amateurish.”
Did anything about Adamek surprise you? “Just his power. We never knew that he was that strong. I didn’t know that I was gonna go down three times. Not that I underestimated him but I thought I was gonna outbox him. Like I did the first round and the beginning of the second round. And then I got a little lackadaisical in my defense. And that opened the doors for three knockdowns.”