Ringside Boxing Report: Tomasz Adamek vs. Jason Estrada

© Ed Mulholland / Main Events

Former Cruiserweight champion and heavyweight contender Tomasz Adamek, a Polish fighter out of Jersey City, New Jersey, won a unanimous twelve-round decision to retain the IBF International Heavyweight title over challenger Jason Estrada at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. Adamek moves into an eliminator bout against Chris Arreola later in 2010 for a shot at the full IBF heavyweight title.

A partisan crowd of over ten-thousand paying Polish patriots wearing red and waving Polish flags influenced the decision, causing Estrada to cry foul at the post-fight press conference. This reporter scored the bout a 115-115 draw, while another reporter scored it 114-114 draw. Neither fighter impressed much.

Estrada clearly won the first, and later the ninth, tenth, and the twelfth. A tiring Adamek, now 40-1 (27), was breathing heavily from the seventh round on. Estrada gave away the eleventh; later claiming it was just “a change in strategy against Adamek” that Estrada still calls “a smart fighter”.

© Ed Mulholland / Main Events

Estrada’s problem was not the ability to take a punch, although Adamek appeared to throw and land a bit more. Estrada’s two problems were his ring behavior; and standing flat-footed in front of Adamek from the second round. This was the sort of strategy that trainer Teddy Atlas has frequently warned that fighters like Estrada cannot win with.

Estrada used a stick and move approach in the first frame, winning the round easily. But in rounds two through eight, Estrada just stood in front of Adamek, who landed jab combinations more aggressively. These rounds were close and hard to score, perhaps even for Adamek. In any case, Estrada failed to ‘take command’ from the sixth round on, when Adamek was clearly a tired fighter able to be outpointed.

Estrada also lost valuable points unnecessarily by running away every time the ten second gavel was banged, while Adamek swarmed in aggressively at the end of every round. In a poor show of sportsmanship, Estrada raised his hands in victory at the end of every round and taunted the Polish crowd, triggering deafening hostile boos, and probably leaving a negative impression on the judges. Without the eleventh round Estrada gave away for no reason, one judge would have had the bout a 114-114 draw.

© Ed Mulholland / Main Events

The post-fight press conference was every bit the jig the twelve round bout was. In reply to this reporter, Estrada, when reminded of Teddy Atlas stating not to stand in front of his opponent, replied with contempt, “All Teddy Atlas is known for is putting a gun to six year old Mike Tyson’s head!”

However, the Polish media then bombarded this reporter with follow up questions-and praise-for it was bluntly clear that Estrada had not followed the Teddy Atlas playbook and had stood in front of Adamek from the second round on.

Far from the “strategy” he claimed, it was Estrada got hit more often overall because he provided Adamek with a stationary target. Even when tired, Adamek landed more blows. In fairness, there were no foul deductions. There was no bad blood between the boxers.

Adamek, when questioned by this reporter about his stamina from the sixth round on, claimed he was simply fighting with greater caution as Estrada was simply looking to land “one big punch”. Adamek, who did address the directed question about his conditioning, went on to chat about how he would defeat Chris Arreola, David Haye, and the Klitschko brothers in his next bouts, bouts which appear to be far beyond his abilities, at this point in the game.

In this reporter’s view, wins over Andrew Golota and Jason Estrada are insufficient for Adamek, an inflated cruiserweight, to fight the next level of opponent. Adamek needs transition fights for at least another year before attempting a fighter like Arreola.

Adamek’s corner found the perfect opponent in Estrada, whose 16-3 record has only four knockouts. Arreola’s 28-1 record has 25 knockouts at the heavyweight level, and given Arreola has what Estrada does not, Arreola vs. Adamek appears to be a gross mismatch on paper.

Scoring: Judge Lawrence Layton 118-110. Judge Joseph Pasquale, 116-112. Judge Steven Weisfeld, 115-113, all for Adamek. Judge Weisfeld’s scoring was closest to truth.

In a super middleweight preliminary to the main event, Peter ‘Kid Chocolate’ Quillin of Brooklyn, New York, won an easy ten round decision over Fernando Zuniga, an Ecuadorian fighting out of Downey, California. Quillin demonstrated faster hand speed with jab combinations, landing often to win every round.

Zuniga was game and was in the house, but was not as fast and just couldn’t land more blows than his opponent. Quillin, now 21-0 (15), is clearly worthy of higher level opposition as a next step, fought comfortably and never pushed the gas pedal against Zuniga, now 28-10 (20).

In preliminary bouts, light heavyweight Ishmayl Sillakh scored an impressive fourth round stoppage of Larry Pryor. Sillakh used power punches to drop Pryor twice late in the third. Pryor just beat both counts. A third knockdown forced referee Steve Smoger to wisely call a halt to the action at 0:47 of the fourth. Sillakh, a Ukrainian out of Simi Valley, California, rose to 11-0 (10). Pryor of Houston, Texas fell to 6-7 (4).

In a brutal cruiserweight war, Patrick Farrell of Jersey City, New Jersey, won a four round decision over Jon ‘The Fighting Marine’ Schneider of Yonkers. Farrell dropped Schneider with a straight right in the first, and with a right hook in the third, winning every round. Farrell rose to 5-0 (3), Schneider, 7-5-1 (5), is winless in his last five bouts.

In a junior middleweight battle, former amateur fighter of the year Denis Douglin of Manville, New Jersey, won a quiet six-round war over Eddie Hunter of Seattle, Washington. Douglin landed jabs all night as Hunter clinched often. Hunter frequently had his left down, didn’t listen to his corner, and got hit with counters as a result. Douglas is now 7-0 (3). Hunter is 2-3-1 (1).

Patrick Majewski, a Polish middleweight out of Atlantic City, New Jersey, won a unanimous decision over Anthony Pietrantonio of Youngstown, Ohio. Scoring was 60-54 across the board. Majewski, 12-0 (7), fought a highly technical, mechanical bout. Pietrontonio, 6-4 (5), lacked Majewski’s skills but lasted longer than he should have.

In a walkout welterweight bout, former two-time national golden gloves champion and ex-Olympian Sadam Ali of Brooklyn, a Yemeni Muslim, won a four decision over Jason Thompson of New York City. Ali outclassed Thompson, who appeared in shape but inferior to the challenge. Ali landed jab flurries, and moved out of range whenever Thompson tried to counter. Ali improves to 5-0 (2) while Thompson drops to 5-5-1 (4). Stands were empty by this point, except for three rows of Ali fans chanting “Ali! Ali!”

While going from the press area at ringside up one flight past the bar to the bathroom, this reporter wound up “refereeing” a unofficial bout between a Polish tough guy and a white guy who was making statements against Tomasz Adamek. Despite breaking up the two fighters, and restraining the Polish guy by hooking my left arm under his left arm, the Polish guy landed some perfect right hands to the head of his opponent. The white guy went over a rope backwards in a flip, wiping out a row of chairs and triggering a melee of Polish men versus Caucasians.

About five minutes later, this reporter witnessed a Polish security guard go up to a sitting booth by the bar and challenger Cruiserweight contender Julio Cesar Matthews to an arm wrestling match for money, cheered by a crowd of menacing Polish fans. Matthews, ranked fifth in the United States and 27th in the world by Boxrec, wound up in a furious arm wrestling battle by the bar, and ultimately won the ‘match’ and twenty dollars. The Polish were pretty friendly after that, but as observed, this was a rough tough fight crowd.

© Robert Brizel / Saddo Boxing

Post fight Press Release quotes:

Jason Estrada: “If everyone in this room were completely honest with themselves you would all admit that I got robbed. I mean, I got played. I might as well have had a gun pointed to my head.

“At best I give Adamek three of the twelve rounds. I seriously think the last judge doesn’t need to judge anymore.

“Yeah I’m angry. I fought my a_ _ off. I trained harder than I ever have. I was in the best shape I’ve ever been in. People talked about me possibly running out of gas, but I never did. All he (Adamek) did was run.”

“If I learned one thing tonight it was that I can’t go into anyone’s hometown to fight. What do I have to do, bring a gun?”

Tomasz Adamek: “It was the best Jason Estrada I’ve ever seen in my life. He was 50 percent better today than he when he fought a top three heavyweight like Aleksander Povetkin. Quick, with a good defense and a very hard head. It was extremely difficult to locate precise punches, because of his defense.

“Maybe, I should have use more than three punches combination, maybe risk a little more? I wanted to do it, but my trainer Andrzej Gmitruk was telling me all the time in the corner to be more boxer than puncher, avoid his punches first, then use different tempo to throw him of his strategy. It was another test in heavyweight division, versus very difficult to fight boxer.

“I was hit couple of times hard, sure – but this is a part of boxing. But none of his punches made me change my tactics or get scared, not at all. I knew he didn’t have a knockout punch.

“I weighed 220 pounds for this fight, probably an ideal weight for me, I was prepared for 12 rounds, and pretty early in the fight I realized this is what would happen. So I had to conserve more energy, maybe be less aggressive than in my previous fights.

“I don’t even want to get into these Jason assumptions that he was robbed. I think I won by four, maybe five points. My trainer Andrzej Gmitruk wanted me to be more boxer than puncher, was screaming at me in the corner. But how can I fight differently when I have a 10,000 of my red and white fans screaming for me to do just that? They pay good money to see entertaining fight, not some boring, slow guys throwing 10 punches a round.

“I have couple of words for those who are saying that I cannot fight [Chris] Arreola because he is a much better puncher than Estrada. First of all every fight is different, and anyone who knows about boxing can say, ‘Estrada hit him, but Arreola will do the same, and harder’.

“We don’t know that. Maybe it will be easier for me to avoid punches from Arreola, and maybe it will be easier for me to hit him! We just don’t know, but won’t it be interesting to see.”