by James Slater – As has been reported previously, IBF cruiserweight champion Tomasz Adamek’s next fight will take place at heavyweight. Successful in his heavyweight debut when he stopped fellow Pole Andrew Golota back in October, “Goral” is, for the time being at least, campaigning as a heavyweight. Set to fight next on February 6th, in his adopted home town of Newark, New Jersey, Adamek is currently searching for an opponent.
However, according to Boxing News Magazine’s “whispers” section, there is a possibility the 32-year-old with the iron chin will face former heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman in his second fight at the new weight.. An interesting fight, even though “Rock” has clearly seen better days, Adamek-Rahman could give us more answers to the question: is Adamek good enough to make it in the sport’s ultimate weight division?
37-year-old Rahman, currently 45-7-2(36), was originally down on BoxRec as taking a fight against a TBA in early December, but that scheduled bout has now been removed from the web site, so maybe Rahman will indeed be fighting Adamek next year. Last seen being stopped by Ring magazine, IBF and WBO heavyweight king Wladimir Klitschko, when he was stopped in the 7th-round in Germany last December, Rahman looked all done and headed for probable retirement. This may still be the case, but nobody should be shocked if the man who once KO’d Lennox Lewis has another fight or two instead.
But what sort of a fight could Rahman give teak-tough warrior Adamek? Always dangerous with his power punches, particularly his right hand, Rahman could possibly further test Adamek’s chin. We know the Polish tough guy can take any cruiserweight’s punch, but at heavyweight his chin still has something of a question mark next to it. If he was tagged cleanly by Rahman and didn’t go anywhere, Adamek would have proved a point.
And if Adamek, 39-1(27) can stop Rahman – a fighter who, despite his failings, has only been stopped by good men, David Tua, Lewis, Oleg Maskaev (twice) and Klitschko – he will have score an impressive win. A decent fight, if not a great one, Adamek-Rahman makes sense. It’s still early days at heavyweight for Adamek, and he’s not obligated to take on anyone TOO dangerous at this point. Look how long it took David Haye to sign for a potentially disastrous fight at heavyweight after he’d moved up from 200-pounds.
And Rahman is at or around the same level as Mote Barrett was when Haye faced his first test at the new weight last year. A KO win over Rahman would be a good step for Adamek, a step towards the big fights he wants. One of which, of course, is a clash with new WBA heavyweight ruler Haye.
February 6th’s bout will be a most interesting one to watch.