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Saturday Night Special: Pulling for a North Jersey Upset

Fri 20th, August 2010

Ocala, FL (Sports Network) - Sure, I'd like to believe it.

Because Michael Grant seems like a decent guy, because he briefly called my old suburban Philadelphia stomping grounds home and because his promoter - fellow New Yorker Nick Garone - has been accessible and cooperative whenever I've called, I want to root for him.

So when he climbs into the ring in the shiny new building in a vast wasteland known as northern New Jersey - this one's in Newark, to be specific - I'll be sending some positive non-sectarian vibes from a lovely weekend outpost on my home state's southwest coast.

But I can't claim it'll really do any good.

As much as I want to believe what I see when I see images of his 6-foot-7 frame towering over the not-quite 6-foot-2 of Saturday night opponent Tomasz Adamek, my memory remains vivid of what happened the last time I bought into his aura just a few miles north.

It's been 10 years since that April night at Madison Square Garden - which I witnessed on TV from a bar in northeast Philly - when the towering and unbeaten Grant was reduced to rubble courtesy of a second-round wrecking ball named Lennox Lewis.

I can't say I went in actually thinking the specimen challenger would beat a one-day Hall of Fame-bound incumbent, but I was surely hoping for something more than 5 minutes and 53 seconds after braving the I-95 traffic and fueling up on multiple $5 beers.

But hey, if that had been the only Grant foible, my zeal this time would be more easily acquired.

It wasn't.

Instead of re-gathering his career and re-ascending toward the division's elite, Grant took an even more damaging fall in his next bout - going down from the initial punch and injuring an ankle in an embarrassing 43-second flameout with Jameel McCline in Las Vegas.

Since then, it's been about what you'd expect.

A seven-fight KO streak woke up the echoes in time for a TKO loss to prospect Dominick Guinn in 2003, a nosedive which has prompted eight more wins - five by stoppage - against the sorts of foes you'd expect for a 38-year-old who's come up sour on every sniff of the big stage.

While Wallace McDaniel, Billy Zumbrun and Demetrice King are no doubt hard workers, loyal husbands and all-around fine people, one-sided beatings of them in boxing rings - even in places like Miami, New York and Philadelphia - don't yield much in the redemption department.

A win Saturday is another matter.

If nature is indeed prescient and Grant effectively bullies an ex-light heavyweight some three dozen pounds his inferior, expect the salvation song to carry from the Essex County swamplands to the belt-laden European trophy rooms of Klitschko, Klitschko and Haye.

"I don't even see him getting beyond that jab," Grant said. "The jab is the most important punch in the game. From the jab perspective, if you're getting past my jab you're in range of my right hand, that's the rule of thumb. Anytime that they step one inch past that jab, it's the right hand that's coming, and if you know the fight game, then you follow that up with a left hook.

"It's speed, combination, consistency and pressure that is going to be the victorious winner over Adamek. You know it's not gonna be a brawl because he's not gonna fight like that. This is not a hard or complicated fight. It's not like two chess players making the best moves. No, it's not like that at all. He's a very simple, ABC-type guy."

The 33-year-old Adamek is a prohibitive favorite in the eyes of odds-makers at World Sports Exchange (wsex.com), where it'll take a successful $1,000 bet on him to return $100. A $100 wager on Grant, meanwhile, would return $650 in the event of an upset.

The over/under for the fight's duration is 9 1/2 rounds.

The fight is available on cable and satellite pay-per-view via iN Demand, DIRECTV and DISH Network at 9 p.m. ET. The suggested retail price is $29.95.

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TV TOPICS (Some fights may not be televised)

FRIDAY TeleFutura - Tucson, Ariz. Michael Franco (16-0) vs. Adolfo Landeros (20-14-1) Mercito Gesta (18-0-1) vs. Genaro Trazancos (22-11-1)

SATURDAY iN Demand/DIRECTV/DISH Network PPV - Newark, N.J. Tomasz Adamek (41-1) vs. Michael Grant (46-3) Joel Julio (35-4) vs. Jamaal Davis (12-6)

FOX Espanol - Tijuana, Mexico Guillermo Rigondeaux (5-0) vs. Jose Angel Beranza (33-18-2) Zapir Rasulov (22-0) vs. Emilio Julio Julio (18-5-1)

THURSDAY FOX - Los Angeles, Calif. Ronny Rios (11-0) vs. Leivi Brea (18-8-3) Antonio Orozco (7-0) vs. Humberto Tapia (15-14-1) Gary Russell Jr. (11-0) vs. TBA

Lyle Fitzsimmons is a veteran sports columnist who's written professionally since 1988 and covered boxing since 1995. His work is published in print and posted online for clients in North America and Europe. Reach him at fitzbitz@msn.com or follow him at www.twitter.com/fitzbitz.