Heavyweight Tony Grano (20-3-1, 16 KO’s) has reportedly suffered an injury and won’t be able to face former two division world champion Tomas Adamek (48-2, 29 KO’s) on August 3rd at the Mohegan Sun Casino, in Uncasville, Connecticut, USA. Both Dan Rafael and Chris Mannix are reporting the injury of Grano. 38-year-old Dominick Guinn (34-9-1, 23 KO’s) has quickly been found and will be replacing Grano.
With there still being two weeks to go before the fight you have to wonder why Adamek’s promoters didn’t take more time to check around to see if they could find a better opponent than Guinn.
I think Guinn was a good heavyweight at one time, but that was many, many years ago. Guinn has lost three out of his last four fights in defeats against Amir Mansour, Kubrat Pulev and Denis Boytsov.
To be honest, I don’t think there’s much difference between Guinn and Grano in terms of talent. Grano was recently dominated by Erik Molina in losing a 12 round unanimous decision last April. Molina is the same guy that Chris Arreola stopped in the 1st round last year in February. I could see Guinn going 12 rounds and losing to Molina as well. There would be no difference.
Adamek needs to step it up because it looks like he’s just padding his record instead of going competitive fights. He had the opportunity to face Pulev recently in an IBF heavyweight eliminator bout earlier this year to get a title shot against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, but Adamek said no to that fight and instead fought Travis Walker. I didn’t really understand that move. It didn’t get him any closer to a title shot against Wladimir, and Adamek isn’t likely going to get picked out for another heavyweight title shot against one of the Klitschko like he did before unless he starts facing better opposition to redeem himself after his 10th round stoppage loss to in September 2011.
Adamek has fought four times since then beating all four of his opponents, but getting two controversial wins over Steve Cunningham and Eddie Chambers among those victories.