By Ian S Palmer
The Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) series returns this Saturday, April 16th as undefeated WBO Cruiserweight Champion Krzysztof Glowacki of Poland defends his crown against former two-time champion Steve Cunningham of America. The 12-round bout from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York can be seen live in North America on the NBC network. The 29-year-old Glowacki enters the fight with a perfect 25-0 record along with 16 Kos while the 29-year-old Cunningham is 28-7-1 and has racked up a total of 13 Kos.
Cunningham of Philadelphia won the cruiserweight title in for the first time in 2006 when he beat Krzysztof Wlodarczyk and then defended it against Marco Huck by a 12th-round TKO. He won it for the second time in 2010 by stopping Troy Ross in the fourth round and will now be attempting to win ii for the third time this Saturday. This is the first defence for Glowacki after he won the WBO crown by getting up from the canvas to stop former champion Marco Huck last August in a highly-entertaining slugfest.
Cunningham’s last fight was a split-decision draw with fellow American veteran Antonio Tarver last August in the heavyweight division, where he has also fought. Cunningham is 6-feet-3-inches tall and has a reach of 82 inches. He’s fought 270 rounds as a pro since 2000 and has a current knockout ratio of 36 per cent. He has enough power to deck an opponent if he catches them clean though, but his chin is somewhat questionable at this point in his career. He did manage to deck current heavyweight champ Tyson Fury in their 2013 bout, but was stopped in the seventh round by a borderline foul shot.
Glowacki lacks experience against big-name fighters, but proved with his win over Huck that it doesn’t really mean anything. He has beaten a couple of decent opponents in Nuri Seferi and Thierry Karl as well. Glowacki is a southpaw who stands 6-feet tall with a 75-inch reach. He has 135 rounds under his belt since turning pro in 2008 and has a 64 per cent knockout ratio. He’s mostly been fighting exclusively in Europe against European opposition. He has good power and a solid chin which makes him a fan-friendly boxer to watch.
The reach advantage of Cunningham needs to be utilized by the champion in this fight if he hopes to be successful. On the other hand, Cunningham needs to use his boxing skills and stay away from Glowacki’s power while picking him off enough to rack up points on the scorecards. Glowacki could make the mistake of relying too much on his power and could find himself in trouble if he isn’t able to land and hurt Cunningham with his big shots. Cunningham has been dropped several times in his career, but only Fury has been able to stop him.
Cunningham has more experience in big fights since he’s met the likes of Fury, Yoan Pablo Hernandez, Vyacheslav Glazkov and Tomasz Adamek and lost to them but has drawn Tarver and beaten Amir Mansour, Huck, Ross, Wayne Braithwaite and Guillermo Jones. He’s no spring chicken, but is a solid boxer with decent power and like Glowacki, has a lot of heart.
Prediction
This fight depends on the activity of the boxers. If Cunningham is energized and active he should be able to outbox Glowacki while the champion would prefer to slug things out even though Cunningham is the bigger man. Cunningham may not have the power to stop Glowacki, but if his chin holds out he should be able to outbox him to take the WBO title.
