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Polish sensation and former two division beltholder Tomasz “Goral” Adamek (48-2-0 29 KO’s) looked highly apathetic in a controversial win against former Cruiserweight champion, America’s Steve Cunningham, (25-5-0 12 KO’s) in their NBC televised rematch.
The judges scored it for Adamek by contesting margins of 115-113 to Adamek (first read as 115-115 a draw), 115-113 to Cunningham and a flat out stunning 116-112 for Adamek.
From the first bell, a pattern emerged from Adamek, who planted his feet and lazily walked toward Cunningham, with little will or enthusiasm behind his work.
Adamek lost many close rounds despite feeble attempts at late comebacks. Cunningham shot a stiff jab to the face from the first bell, causing swelling of Adamek’s right eye but the judges were delusional to the entire circumstances and gave many controversial rounds to Adamek when his workrate proved undeserving of the verdict.
A fight it may remind you of is not Cunningham vs. Adamek 1, in which Adamek chugged forward with much more effort and seemed to genuinely care.
This contest was more like the widely critized war between Marvin Hagler and Sugar Ray Leonard where Hagler worked throughout to earn rounds and Leonard attempted to take every round with late, violent surges. I scored that much larger collision to Marvin Hagler. Steve Cunningham is a fighter who came in at his very best, and did the same as Hagler.
Now, these two fights are very different. Hagler, for one, chased down the slick Leonard with intelligent pressure, while Adamek stood there quite still to eat the double jabs, heavy left-rights and well timed boxing skills provided by Cunningham.
Plus, of course Leonard planned impressive little counter attacks from different angles, whereas Adamek more or less plodded forward and whacked Cunningham with a few staggering hooks as part of an inconsistent offense.
Cunningham came out unscathed in my view and Adamek was shop warn and confused many times in the battle.
I am not one to emit a loud war cry of “robbery” every time a boxer loses an unappealing tight decision; this nasty part of our pugilistic art is what turns away potential fans. But, I will say that three minutes of precise boxing is better than few seconds of flurries by Adamek, hense why I scored the contest as with one of the three scoring judges at 115-113 for Cunningham.
This is after I gave Adamek plently of thin rounds. I’m intrigued on the idea of a third fight, but soon as both men are a rusty 36 years of age and while that may be lean and mean in real life, in boxing, it is fairly elderly, so in short, they need to scoop up the shards of their careers quick.
On the featured undercard, talented Russian import Vyacheslav Glazkov (14-0-0 10 KO’s) put his remarkable 13-0 record on the line against fringe up and comer Tor Hamer (19-2-0 12 KO’s) and won by an impressive fourth round corner-retirement TKO in a good tactical showing.
That’s all for Saddoboxing’s post fight, please come back for much more news and excellent content after the new year. Happy holidays!
Corey Quincy is a boxing writer for Saddoboxing.com, his blog Blboxing and more. Like his Facebook page at Boxing Legends and follow him on Twitter at Quincyboxingfan.
