TalkingBoxing News
Cunningham Takes on Adamek, This Thursday on Versus
MON December 8 - Main Event and Co-Feature to Air Live on VERSUS Beginning at 8 p.m. ET/PT The last world championship boxing match in Newark, N.J., was held in 1948 when Tony Zale and Rocky Graziano met in the rubber match of their epic three-fight trilogy.
On Thursday (Dec. 11) a world championship doubleheader will be presented at Newark’s gleaming new Prudential Center when International Boxing Federation cruiserweight champion Steve “USS” Cunningham defends his title against former world champion Tomasz “Goral” Adamek and IBF bantamweight champion Joseph King Kong Agbeko faces his IBF mandatory challenger, No. 1-ranked William “Chirizo” Gonzalez.
Tickets, priced at $303, $153, $78, $53, $38, are on sale now and can be purchased by calling TicketMaster at 201-507-8900. The event is being co-promoted by Main Events and Don King Productions, in association with Prudential Center, and the world-championship matches will also be televised live on VERSUS beginning at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
One of the top prospects in the fight game, undefeated No. 1-ranked World Boxing Council super lightweight Devon Alexander “The Great” (16-0, 9 KOs), from St. Louis, will face Christopher Ferandez (15-5-1, 9 KOs), from St. Lake City, Utah, in a domestically non-televised special attraction scheduled for eight rounds.
Cunningham (21-1, 11 KOs) will be making the second defense of his 200-pound-limit crown.
“I’m a true world champion,” Cunningham said at the initial press conference announcing the event. “I’ve fought in South Africa, Germany and in Poland, twice. I’m more popular in Europe than I am in America right now but that’s about to change. I want to give the world a true cruiserweight world champion that will stay in the division and defend his titles for many years.”
“I want Adamek to bring his best on December 11 in Newark. He’s a family man like me but it’s my job to put my hands on him and that’s what I’m going to do.” The Polish-born former World Boxing Council light heavyweight champion Adamek
(35-1, 24 KOs), now fighting out of Jersey City, N.J., has carried his punch to cruiserweight. “It made me weak to make 175 pounds against Chad Dawson and I was still able to knock him down,” Adamek said. “My right hand is bigger at cruiserweight.” Adamek’s case is bolstered by the fact that on April 19 he was able to score a technical knockout over O’Neil Bell, who in 2006 became the first undisputed cruiserweight world champion since Evander “The Real Deal” Holyfield held that distinction in 1988.
“Steve’s a nice guy but I’m going to beat him,” Adamek said. “He’s a world champion and I respect him but I will win. Steve’s quick and dynamic. It will be a great fight.”
A classic boxer-puncher, Cunningham won his championship by defeating Krzystztof Wlodarczyk in Poland on May 26, 2007. Six months earlier, Cunningham suffered the sole loss of his career in a controversial split decision won by Wlodarczyk when the two squared off for the vacant IBF championship. Cunningham also scored notable wins against former IBF cruiserweight champion Kelvin “Koncrete” Davis and Panamanian strongman Guillermo “El Felino” Jones, who recently took the World Boxing Association cruiserweight championship from Firat Arslan on Sept. 27.
Adamek burst upon the boxing scene in his first fight in America against Australian Paul “Hurricane” Briggs for the vacant WBC light heavyweight championship at the United Center in Chicago on May 21, 2005. Their 12-round slugfest, which Adamek won by majority decision, was one of the better fights of that year. The impressive win turned Adamek into an overnight sensation in his home country and in Chicago, which boasts the largest Polish population outside of Warsaw.
The inevitable rematch came the following year and rivaled the first match in its brutal intensity. Again, Adamek won by majority decision.
Adamek’s lone loss came against undefeated “Bad” Chad Dawson in Kissimmee, Fla., on Feb. 3, 2007. The slick Dawson built a scorecard lead that Adamek came close to erasing when he landed his vaunted right-hand power punch that sent Dawson to the canvas in the 10th round. Dawson literally held on to Adamek to narrowly escape and won the match by decision. Joseph King Kong Agbeko (25-1, 22 KOs), from Accra, Ghana, made the most of his first world-title shot on Sept. 29, 2007. He dethroned defending champion Luis “El Demoledor” Perez to win the IBF bantamweight title at ARCO Arena in Sacramento, Calif.
Perez had been a world champion since 2003 with only one career loss on his record going into the fight with Agbeko. The Ghanaian challenger gave a gritty performance where he took the best Perez had to offer early in the fight before pummeling the Nicaraguan so badly in the sixth and seventh rounds that the referee halted the contest before round eight could start.
Gonzalez (21-2, 19 KOs), from Managua, Nicaragua, would like to take a page out of Agbeko’s book by upsetting the champion in his first world-championship appearance, just as Agbeko was able to do before him when he faced the longtime champion Perez. The excitement of the return of world-championship boxing to Newark is fueled Prudential Center, whose presence in downtown Newark over the last year has contributed greatly to returned excitement in the city.
“With the one-year anniversary of Prudential Center upon us, we are thrilled to have yet another milestone as the arena hosts the first world-championship boxing event in Newark since 1948,” President and Chairman of Devils Arena Entertainment Jeff Vanderbeek said. “We are looking forward to working with Don King Productions and Main events to bring back the rich history of boxing in this city and showcase it in our state-of-the-art arena.” The importance of the last world championship contested in Newark is undisputed. Rocky Graziano and Tony Zale met for the first time in 1946 at the “house that Ruth built”, Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, N.Y., where Zale scored a sixth-round knockout over “The Rock.”
The rematch was held at the venerable Chicago Stadium in 1947 where Graziano came off the canvas in round three to rebound and dish out 30 unanswered punches in round six, leaving Zale pinned against the ropes. The referee was forced to halt the onslaught soon thereafter.
The significance of their third meeting, which took place at Newark’s Ruppert Stadium, featuring New Jersey’s own Paul Cavilere as referee, cannot be overstated. Zale sent Graziano to the mat for a three-count in the first round, took a seven-count in the third, and was knocked out later in the round. (Ruppert Stadium in the Down Neck section of Newark was demolished in 1967, but Prudential Center is located near this same city section.)
About Prudential Center
Prudential Center is the first new, state-of-the-art facility built in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area in over 25 years. As home to the NHL’s New Jersey Devils, Seton Hall University men’s basketball and indoor soccer’s New Jersey Ironmen, Prudential Center serves as a cornerstone of New Jersey sports giving fans all over the state convenient access to their favorite teams. The venue sits three short blocks from Newark Penn Station and is accessible via seven major New Jersey highways making it easy to experience major music acts, sporting events and family shows in the state’s largest and fastest growing city.
About Main Events
Main Events was founded in 1978 by Kathy Duva's late husband Dan Duva. In addition to the hundreds of world title bouts it has promoted, Main Events has promoted some of the biggest PPV events in history like “Showdown” the 1981 undisputed welterweight unification bout between “Sugar” Ray Leonard and Thomas “The Hitman” Hearns; “The Battle of the Ages” 1991 undisputed heavyweight championship between Evander Holyfield and George Foreman; the “Miss Howard Stern New Year's Eve” pageant, and the 2002 Lennox Lewis-Mike Tyson heavyweight showdown which at the time set the record for the highest grossing PPV event of all-time.
About Don King Productions
Don King Productions has promoted over 500 world championship fights with nearly 100 individual boxers having been paid $1 million or more. DKP also holds the distinction of having promoted or co-promoted seven of the 10 largest pay-per-view events in history, as gauged by total buys, including three of the top five: Holyfield vs. Tyson II, 1.99 million buys, June 1997; Tyson vs. Holyfield I, 1.6 million buys, November 1996; and Tyson vs. McNeeley, 1.58 million buys, August 1995. DKP has promoted or co-promoted 12 of the top 20 highest-grossing live gates in the history of the state of Nevada including four of the top five: Holyfield vs. Lewis II, paid attendance: 17,078, gross: $16,860,300 (NOTE: Also second-highest live-gate gross for any event in the history of the world.), date: Nov. 13, 1999; Holyfield vs. Tyson II, paid attendance: 16,279, gross: $14,277,200, date: June 28, 1997; Holyfield vs. Tyson I, paid attendance: 16,103, gross: $14,150,700, date: Nov. 9, 1996; and Tyson vs. McNeeley, paid attendance: 16,113, gross: $13,965,600, date: Aug. 19, 1995. (More…)
VERSUS celebrates real competition across all platforms (VERSUS.com, VERSUS on Demand and VERSUS HD). Now in more than 74 million homes, the network is the national cable home of the National Hockey League (NHL) and the Stanley Cup Playoffs as well as best-in-class events such as The Tour de France, Davis Cup Tennis, the Professional Bull Riders (PBR), World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC), the Indy Racing League and Professional Boxing. The network also offers collegiate sports featuring nationally-ranked teams from top conferences such as the Pac-10, Big 12, Mountain West and Ivy League. VERSUS features the best field sports programming on television and is a destination for sports fans, athletes and sportsmen to find exclusive, competitive events and original programs, such as TapouT, Sports Soup and THE CONTENDER that audiences can't find elsewhere. VERSUS, a wholly owned company of Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA, CMCSK), is distributed via cable systems and satellite operators throughout the United States.
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