Tomasz Adamek defeats Fred Kassi

Boxingnews24.com

By Jeff Aranow: Former 2 division world champion Tomasz Adamek (52-5, 30 KOs) defeated 38-year-old journeyman Fred Kassi (18-7-1, 10 KOs) by a 10 round unanimous decision on Saturday night at the Hala Sportowa, in ul Zuzlowa 4, in Czestochowo, Poland.

Adamek, 40, won the fight by the scores 97-93, 96-94 and 96-94. Adamek clearly did enough to win the fight, but he was far from impressive. Kassi was on the run most of the fight, but when he decided to fight in the 5th, he had Adamek in serious distress. It was similar to how Adamek looked against Eric Molina last year in April.

Adamek dominated the first 9 rounds of that fight, but he quickly folded when Molina suddenly started throwing punches in the 10th. Kassi would have likely knocked Adamek out as well if he’d stepped on the gas in the 6th, because Adamek looked ready to be stopped in the previous round.

Adamek suffered a cut over his left eye from a clash of heads in round 2. Kassi suffered a similar cut over his left eye from a head-butt in round 6.

For the most part, Adamek plodded around the ring, pressuring an elusive Kassi for the entire 10 round fight. Kassi did not want to stand and fight for some reason, even though he had the better power and hand speed of the two. Kassi was the far better fighter when he was letting his hands go, but he was giving too much ground and showing too much respect for Adamek.

Adamek looked very slow the entire fight. His hand was never good even when he was fighting at light heavyweight and cruiserweight, but’s painfully slow now. It’s unclear what Adamek’s end goal is for the remainder of his boxing career. Adamek isn’t ranked in the top 15 by any of the sanctioning bodies at this time. If Adamek is going to get a world title shot, it’ll likely need to be a situation where he’s picked out by one of the champions making a voluntary defense.

In the best possible world, Adamek will get a top 15 ranking, and get selected by IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua for a title shot. Adamek would make a ton of money by fighting Joshua. For that fight to happen, Adamek will likely need to beat a contender or two in the division so that he can get ranked high enough to get spotted by Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn. The way that Adamek looked against Kassi, it’s doubtful that he could beat any of the top 15 contenders. I think the only ones that Adamek would have a chance of beating right now would be BJ Flores, Otto Wallin, Kyotaro Fujimoto, Alexander Dimitrenko and Trevor Bryan. Those guys are actually contenders, which is hard to believe.

The loss for Kassi was his 4th consecutive defeat since 2015. Kassi hasn’t won a fight in four years since his 3rd round knockout of Shannon Caudle in 2013. Kassi has some talent, but he doesn’t utilize his potential by going after his opponents and unloading on them with flurries. If Kassi could go after his opponents the way he did with Adamek in round 5, he’d have a lot more victories. He showed in that round that he has the tools to be a good fighter. Unfortunately, Kassi doesn’t seem to have the killer instinct that he needs to be a good fighter. A more aggressive Kassi would have knocked Adamek out by the 6th. Adamek was there to be knocked out by Kassi, but he failed to step on the gas to finish him.