McBride could mean big trouble for Adamek

NEWARK -- Say what you will about Kevin Martin McBride, who is filling the role of "opponent" for heavyweight contender Tomasz Adamek Saturday night at Prudential Center. He's a month shy of his 38th birthday, has lost four of his last five bouts and was out of boxing for three years before making a comeback last year.

But the 6-6, 270-pound "Clones Colossus" has a story to tell and an Irishman's gift for telling it. Yes, McBride was chosen to give Adamek a workout as kind of a live heavy bag to keep him busy in advance of a proposed heavyweight title bout against either Vitali or Wladimir Klitschko in September in Poland, but McBride's record has 29 knockouts, including his sixth-round TKO that retired Mike Tyson in 2005.

For Adamek, it's a case of boxer beware. As McBride noted in the final pre-fight news conference Wednesday, "I'm gonna bring me own ref and me own judges. He might hit me, but I've got a longer reach and he's not going to be too far away. George Foreman showed when he knocked out Michael Moorer the last thing to go is power.

"Before I beat Tyson, I said I was going to shock the world. Now, I'll say I'm going to upset the world and especially the Polish people when I win. I never heard of Tomasz Adamek until I got word from my manager Jerry Quinn that I was fighting him."

Before fighting Tyson, McBride said he had himself hypnotized, and he did the same thing before this fight. "It helped me," he said. "I didn't want to leave any stone unturned. He helps me to focus and use 100 percent of my brain. It's exciting because I've already seen the fight."

Needless to say, it ends in McBride's mind with a victory that sends him on his way to becoming the first Irish-born heavyweight champion. His recent record hardly indicates such an outcome, but McBride claims he has regained the "hunger" for a title shot that evaporated after the Tyson win when no title shot came his way. Coincidentally, his third bout after beating Tyson was a sixth-round loss to Andrew Golota, the last Polish heavyweight viewed as a serious heavyweight contender.

Although McBride admitted his weight might lead fans to believe he's out of shape, he claims to not only have done his running but worked hard in the gym to build his strength to new levels. He said he can bench press 425 pounds 10 times, which would be impressive indeed.

With so much at stake, Adamek can't afford to not take McBride seriously. The fight is billed as "The Last BIG Hurdle" for a reason, and Adamek has been working to improve his strength and add a little more flexibility to his style to make himself more of a moving target and enhance the effect of his speed against the big men he must defeat to win the title.

"I respect Kevin, and I'm ready to fight," Adamek said. "I want to give a good show. This is my destiny."

If it's Adamek's destiny, he might have to win a good donnybrook to get there. At least, that's the way McBride sees it.

"There's only two ways I'm coming out of the ring -- with my hand raised in victory or on a stretcher," McBride said. "I'm going to show you what Irish pride means."