TOMASZ ADAMEK W12 (split) STEVE CUNNINGHAM

In one of the the most exciting cruiserweight title fights in the division’s history, Tomasz Adamek’s superior chin and punching power carried him to a split but deserved decision win over Steve Cunningham in the main event on Thursday night’s Versus show.

Down three times, Cunningham amazingly finished the stronger man and might even have won had this been a 15-rounder. Adamek, who had fought a tremendous fight, looked weary and was being backed up in the final round. Unfortunately for Cunningham, though, it is very hard to win a 12-round fight after taking three eight counts unless a boxer has the punching power to score a knockdown or two himself.

Cunningham’s problems were twofold. He didn’t have the power to affect Adamek seriously, while he himself was being hurt by his opponent’s blows. I do not believe that Cunningham was seriously hurt in any of the three knockdowns, but he had been legitimately floored each time and these were presumably 10-8 rounds in Adamek’s favour.

Interestingly, Adamek would have won even without the knockdowns, the two New Jersey judges having him ahead by scores of 116-110 and 115-112, while the judge from Rhode Island saw saw Cunningham ahead, 114-112.

I had it 114-112 in Adamek’s favour but I gave him only a 10-9 round in the fourth because, even though he dropped Cunningham late in the round, he had been hammered by so many punches earlier in the round — left uppercuts through the middle, right hands over the top — that it fleetingly looked as if he might actually get stopped.

After having had his best round of the fight, Cunningham saw it all taken away from him when he got dropped by a right hand with the round almost over. Boxing, like life itself, can be so cruel sometimes. Cunningham said afterwards that he felt the knockdown at the end of the fourth cost him the fight. I think it probably did, because it was such a huge turnaround. It wasn’t just the knockdown, it gave Adamek a massive psychological advantage because he now knew that he could take whatever Cunningham could throw at him and that his own punches could drop his opponent at any time.

As gamely and as well as Cunningham fought, one had the sense that he was at risk throughout. There were the knockdowns at the end of the second and late in the fourth, and then another one in the eighth, with Adamek’s left hook just as dangerous as the Polish boxer’s right hand so that Cunningham didn’t have just one punch to worry about — reminding me of a line from the old Tennessee Ernie Ford song, 16 Tons, about a working man with metaphorically one fist of iron, the other of steel: “If the right one don’t getcha, then the left one will.”

The roaring of the big Polish faction in the crowd must have made Philadelphia’s Cunningham feel like he was fighting on the road in Europe again: “I feel like I’m in Warsaw,” said commentator Nick Charles.

With the crowd roaring every time Adamek landed a punch, it stood to reason that the judges were likely to gave the close rounds to the Polish fighter, and without a fight-changing punch at his disposal Cunningham was never going to win after suffering the third knockdown. I even thought he might get stopped when a left hook followed by a right hand wobbled him back in the ninth round and, strangely, I thought he had been more hurt at that moment than in any of his trips to the canvas. Yet Cunningham gamely rallied down the stretch and I thought he outfought a tiring Adamek in the 11th round and most definitely the 12th. Too little, of course, and too late.

Perhaps if Cunningham had used the jab more, if he had fought more of a constantly moving style, he could have won, but Adamek was putting quick pressure on him and I think that the Philadelphian felt that had to try to get Adamek’s respect by trying to back him off a bit with hard punches, and this he couldn’t do.

Adamek well deserved to win his second world title, having been a champion at light-heavy. He is a strong 200-pounder, heavy-handed and extremely durable and also a very smart fighter who can win either by going forward or by counter punching. His strength, toughness and indomitable will proved too much for the defending champion, but Cunningham was fighting till the bitter end, and no one can ask for more than that.