Kownacki Hopes to Land His Biggest Shots Inside the Fair Pole

As far as pugilistic heroes and role models go, the notorious heavyweight Andrew Golota, whose frequent in-ring indiscretions led to his being nicknamed the “Foul Pole,” might seem to be a curious choice. But Golota – a bronze medalist for Poland at the 1988 Seoul Olympics whose actual first name is Andrzej, Americanized for professional purposes after he moved from Warsaw to Chicago in 1990 – was successful and popular with his countrymen when he wasn’t mentally imploding.  For a frightened, seven-year-old child recently arrived in Brooklyn, N.Y., from the old country, idolization of Golota seemed perfectly reasonable to Adam Kownacki. If Golota could appear on television in America before large, enthusiastic crowds of Polish emigres waving their birth nation’s flag, little Adam determined, why shouldn’t he be able to do the same when he grew up?

Adam Kownacki (the proper pronunciation of his family name is KOZ-NOSKI) is 29 now and not so little anymore at 6-foot-3 and, depending on how many kielbasas he had for lunch, usually somewhere between 250 and 260 pounds on fight night.  Ranked No. 10 by the WBC and 12^th by the IBF, Kownacki (17-0, 14 KOs) hopes to take another step toward the heavyweight championship of the world, or at least an alphabetized version of it — something never achieved by Golota, or by anyone else with similarly deep Polish roots – when he takes on former IBF titlist Charles Martin (25-1-1, 23 KOs) Saturday night in the co-featured 10-rounder on Showtime at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, in support of the main event which pits former 147-pound champions Danny Garcia (34-1, 20 KOs) and Shawn Porter (28-2-1, 17 KOs) for the vacant WBC welterweight title.

“I’m ready to make a statement on Sept. 8,” Kownacki said of a hazy, long-held dream that is beginning to come into somewhat clearer focus, and likely more so should he take care of business against Martin. “I hope after this fight, when I get the `W,’ I’ll be in line for a title shot.”

Those jostling for position behind the current best of the big men, WBA/IBF/WBO champ Anthony Joshua of England and WBC ruler Deontay Wilder from the college football capital of Tuscaloosa, Ala., are many, diverse of nationality and mostly impatient. In addition to Kownacki, the list of heavyweights-in-waiting include  New Zealand’s Joseph Parker (24-2, 18 KOs), England’s (by way of his native Jamaica) Dillian Whyte (24-1, 17 KOs), Cuba’s Luis “King Kong” Ortiz (29-1, 25 KOs), Bulgaria’s Kubrat Pulev (25-1, 13 KOs) and Americans Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller (20-0-1, 18 KOs), Bryant Jennings (24-2, 14 KOs) and Dominic Breazeale (19-1, 17 KOs). But it is largely a recycled group; Parker is a former WBO champ who lost on points in a unification matchup with Joshua, while Ortiz, Breazeale, Jennings and Kubrat all had previous shots at the title and came up short. Whyte still hasn’t fought for the big prize yet, but he was stopped in seven rounds by a pre-championship Joshua in a competitive and entertaining scrap on Dec. 12, 2015.

That leaves only Kownacki and Miller as truly fresh meat, which might make either or both more attractive to the survivors of the Sept. 22 pairing of Joshua (21-0, 20 KOs) and Russia’s Alexander Povetkin (34-1, 24 KOs) in London and that of Wilder (40-0, 39 KOs) and comebacking, still-lineal champ Tyson Fury (27-0, 19 KOs), which is expected to take place in November or December in Las Vegas, although no date has been announced.

So, exactly how good is Kownacki, or, perhaps more to the point, how good can he be if his progression proceeds as rapidly as his supporters believe?

Although Lou DiBella is not technically Kownacki’s promoter (the fighter is part of Al Haymon’s deep Premier Boxing Champions stable), he has staged many of Kownacki’s bouts, as will be the case on Saturday night, and he is firm in his belief that the kid who was first drawn to boxing through his fascination with Golota has a reasonable chance to go where no Polish or Polish-American heavyweight has gone before. And so what if Kownacki doesn’t have six-pack abs or a withering scowl that suggests he is always ready to rip an opponent’s lungs out?

“Adam’s not ripped, he doesn’t have the physique of an Adonis,” DiBella said. “He’s always had a little bit of baby fat on him. He has a baby face. He’s also not 6’7”. He looks less athletic than he really is, so people tend to sleep on him. But if I was another heavyweight contender, I wouldn’t want to fight Adam Kownacki. In my mind, he’s a legit heavyweight championship contender.”

Already a drawing card at the Barclays Center – the Martin fight will mark his seventh appearance there, where he is beginning to be greeted as enthusiastically as was Golota whenever and wherever he carried Poland’s boxing banner into action — the main knock on Kownacki to date is that his resume is a bit thin. The most recognizable opponent he has defeated is another Pole, Artur Szpilka, whom he stopped in four rounds on July 14, 2017, also at Barclays. Kownacki is quick to point out that he disposed of Szpilka quicker than did Wilder, who needed nine rounds to get Szpilka out there in their title bout on Jan. 16, 2016 at Barclays.

Now another litmus test of sorts presented by the 32-year-old Martin, a 6’5” southpaw who has the six-pack abs Kownacki doesn’t and, lest we forget, had brief possession of the IBF title, a vacant championship he won in somewhat dubious fashion on the undercard of Wilder-Szpilka when Ukraine’s Vyacheslav Glazkov badly injured his right ankle in the third round and was unable to continue. Martin’s reign lasted only 84 days, the second shortest in heavyweight championship history to Tony Tucker’s 64 days as IBF titlist in 1987. Nor was the way Martin relinquished his title pretty; he was blasted out in two rounds by Joshua in London, and he landed only three of 58 attempted punches before the finish. More than a few observers have called Martin’s feeble effort that night arguably the worst performance ever in a heavyweight title bout.

Martin has since won two fights in emphatic fashion against journeymen Byron Polley and Michael Marrone, and he insists he is not showing up to serve as anyone’s steppingstone on the way to bigger and better things. “My goal is to become a two-time world champion, man,” Martin, clearly miffed as being portrayed as a has-been or, worse, a never-really-was, said when asked how he viewed his role in this crossroads contest. “I’m here to show people I’m legit. I’m real. I got to prove all the haters wrong.”

And therein is the crux of a fight that might not really settle much, no matter what the outcome. Although Martin wants to prove all the haters wrong, Kownacki might not do much to prove all his supporters right even if he tunes up Martin, whose stock couldn’t have fallen any lower than it did after he served as a heavy bag to the vastly superior Joshua. It will probably take one, and possibly two or three, victories over a higher level of competition for Kownacki to snag the shot at the world title belt he dares to believe is his destiny.

If he someday makes it all the way to the top, it likely will establish him as the most iconic of Polish boxing icons. Although Krzysztof Wlodarczyk is a two-time former cruiserweight champion, Darius Michalczewski was a long-reigning super middleweight champ and Tomasz Adamek won titles as both a light heavyweight and cruiser, Polish fighters are 0-7 in bids to become king of the heavyweight hill. Golota lost all four of his title shots, coming up short against Lamon Brewster, John Ruiz, Chris Byrd and Lennox Lewis, but he is probably better known for his meltdowns in two non-title disqualification losses in fights he was winning against Riddick Bowe, as well as for quitting against Mike Tyson and Michael Grant, biting Samson Po’uha’s neck and flagrantly head-butting Danell Nicholson. That crazy-quilt career of highs and lows sets Golota apart from other Polish fighters who have lost heavyweight title bouts, a list that includes Szpilka, Adamek and Albert Sosnowski.

“Andrew is remembered, but for the wrong reasons,” Sam Colonna, one of the trainers who futilely tried to fit together the jumble of puzzle pieces in Golota’s mind, once said. “Nobody remembers the good, only the bad, and with Andrew there was a lot of bad. The rap on Andrew never has been that he couldn’t fight or didn’t have talent. It’s always been that he couldn’t handle pressure.”

Now along comes the nice-guy, even-keeled Kownacki, a veritable “Fair Pole” who would appear to be everything that the now-49-year-old Golota was not. Maybe, just maybe, the biggest difference of all could be Kownacki’s possible ascendance to ultimate heavyweight glory.

Bernard Fernandez is the retired boxing writer for the Philadelphia Daily News. He is a five-term former president of the Boxing Writers Association of America, an inductee into the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Atlantic City Boxing Halls of Fame and the recipient of the Nat Fleischer Award for Excellence in Boxing Journalism and the Barney Nagler Award for Long and Meritorious Service to Boxing.

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