In contrast to last week’s Winky Wright-Felix Trinidad this bout had just about as much drama and excitement a boxing fan could want, with the exception of a knockdown or knockout.

Adamek established his superior boxing skills in the opening stanza, easily winning the points in the first round. Then, in the first few seconds of the second round, disaster struck for Briggs;  an accidental head clash opened up a cut just above his left eye that sent the largest and fastest spurt of blood I have ever seen. How much this effected Briggs’ vision I’m not sure, but it certainly didn’t do him any favors. Adamek dominated the first two rounds with sharp boxing, good movement and defense, and crisp combination punching.

Briggs came to life in the third round probably sensing the urgency of the situation with his cut eye, and he landed some very big right hands. To my disappointment, Adamek took Briggs’ best shots fairly well, and after being initially staggered he recomposed himself like a champion should. I gave Briggs the 3rd round, and I felt he was still in with a chance, but as the rounds progressed a rhythm developed; Adamek throwing a lot of fast combinations with about half finding their target and the other half hitting Briggs’ gloves and Briggs stalking Adamek, having trouble getting through the taller man’s long-armed defense. Briggs definitely landed the harder punches in the bout, but at an educated guess I would say Adamek landed two and half times more punches, and quite often when Briggs landed a big power shot Adamek immediately came back with impressive sharp counterpunches.

At the beginning of the 8th round Briggs landed a couple of very big right hands that clearly staggered Adamek and I thought that the big Pole was starting to be worn down by the heavier, although less frequent, shots Briggs was landing. Towards the end of the round Briggs landed another flush right that drove Adamek to the ropes, but Briggs was unable to capitalize as well as I was wishing, and Adamek made it to the end of the round.

I was hoping that Adamek was one of these fighters who gets worn down and if he was, Briggs would have won by knockout by the 10th, but Adamek is a fighter who seems to recover well, and gets his second and third winds.

Before this bout Adamek had never fought past 10 rounds, although you would never have guessed it by his performance. By the 11th round both men had sustained considerable damage during this competitive war. Briggs' cut eye bled continually throughout the bout as well as a bruise under his left eye. Adamek had some severe bruising around his left eye from the third round onwards and I'm pretty sure Briggs broke Adamek’s nose in the 8th or 9th round. Both men really tried to pull out all the stops from the 11th round onwards and I remember Briggs landing a very hurtfully stiff left jab to Adamek’s broken and bleeding nose and I saw the pain on his face, but Adamek shook this pain off and continued to dominate Briggs by landing good, crisp combinations.

Adamek came out for the 12th round and really looked to dominate and like most of the previous rounds Briggs landed the more -but fewer- powerful punches and Adamek landed more less powerful punches. At the end of 12 rounds both men had left nothing on the shelf and we, the boxing fans, had received our money’s worth from an entertainment  perspective.    

I do have to question the scoring a bit as one judge had the bout even, the other scored it 115-113 for Adamek and another had Adamek the winner at 117-113. I had Briggs winning 4 rounds at best and I’m a very patriotic Aussie boxing supporter. I found it difficult to believe a judge could have this bout even, perhaps that judge liked the fewer but harder punches but I certainly didn’t agree. The only question I had concerning the bout, was this... I thought under the WBC rules a fighter who inflicted an accidental head butt was deducted one point. To my knowledge this didn’t happen. Still, I don’t believe it would have made too much difference in the result, but word from the Briggs camp in this morning's Australian press seems to be that a lot of people at ringside, including Polish journalists, felt the bout was a draw or that Briggs won.

Somehow I don’t think the cut eye Briggs sustained made too much difference to the end result; I think Adamek was definitely the better fighter. There is talk of a rematch so we might find out if Adamek was just the better fighter on the night.

What happens from here for Paul Briggs; well, I guess it depends whether Don King drops him because he lost. However, the word is that King was very impressed with Briggs' effort and wants him back as soon as possible, after the performance he put on. As for Tomasz Adamek, he would give any Light heavyweight major headaches based on his performance over Briggs.