My time can still come, insists Grant
A decade on, Grant is still waiting, and still trying. The 6ft 7ins Grant, now aged 38, gets another chance this weekend, when he faces Poland’s exceptional former light-heavyweight champion Tomasz Adamek.
That Grant is still fighting at all is rather surprising. Articulate and educated, he didn’t take up the sport until he was in his teens, and after his quickfire failure against Lewis he largely disappeared from view.
Grant had been built up as the latest next big thing, but that night in New York it proved a different story.
However Grant kept fighting, at least once each year since bar 2006. Now he believes his time is about to come again. “The only time I trained harder for a fight was the Lewis fight,” he insisted, a little ominously.
After losing to Lewis, Grant returned more than a year later in a disastrous comeback against Jameel McCline, when he was floored by the first punch and ruled out with an injured ankle.
Since then he has won 16 out of 17, shaking off a 2003 stoppage loss to the then fringe contender Dominick Guinn which seemed at the time to have finally finished off a once- promising career. None of Grant’s conquests since have been high profile, but he has kept winning and been picked out by Adamek’s camp as the Pole continues to adapt to life among the big men and they don’t come much bigger than Grant.
“I don’t want to give the impression that this is a rehearsal because we’re taking Michael Grant very seriously,” said Adamek’s trainer Roger Bloodworth. “He needs this fight desperately.”
Adamek has emerged as a potential future star after leaving the cruiserweight division last year. He knocked out an ailing Andrew Golota before scoring impressive wins over top-level opponents Jason Estrada and Chris Arreola. Grant ought not to pose too many problems for Adamek but, trained by the vastly experienced Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, Grant is convinced he can make the most of what is surely his final opportunity to muscle back in on the big-time.
Grant missed this week’s pre-fight press conference but he told Sports Illustrated: “I only have three losses and they were learning fights, stepping stones. It’s a great opportunity and I’m ready for it.”
Meanwhile WBC heavyweight king Vitali Klitschko has confirmed he will defend his title against American Shannon Briggs on 16 October in Hamburg, Germany. The fight effectively ends the hopes of Britain’s WBA champion David Haye of facing Ukrainian Klitschko in 2010.
“Briggs has great experience, has fought significantly more fights than I have and is one of the hardest punchers in the division,” said Klitschko.
Klitschko, 39, is 40-2, while 38-year-old Briggs is 51-5 with one draw. For the Ukrainian it will be the fifth time he has defended his title since beating Samuel Peter in October 2008 to regain the WBC crown, having temporarily retired in 2004.
Klitschko had wanted to face Russian giant Nikolay Valuev in his 13th world title fight but the bout fell through. The WBC champion’s most recent win was over Poland’s Albert Sosnowski in May 2010, while New Yorker Briggs’s most recent bout was a victory over Rob Calloway in May.
Klitschko’s brother Wladimir will defend his IBF, WBO and IBO heavyweight titles against Nigeria’s Peter in Frankfurt on September 11.
