NEW YORK -- Adam Kownacki couldn’t have scripted his co-main event performance any better Saturday night.
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Not only did the heavyweight score a pulverizing second-round TKO against Gerald Washington in his hometown of Brooklyn with Polish fans cheering him on, but Kownacki did it in front of WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder, who was in attendance at Barclays Center.
Don't let the baby face fool you, @AKBabyFace is the real deal! #PBConFOX #KownackiWashington pic.twitter.com/zIGzkX5GAg
— PBC (@premierboxing) January 27, 2019
Improving to 19-0, with 15 KOs, has Kownacki thinking why not him? Why not “Babyface” vs. “The Bronze Bomber” with Wilder’s WBC strap on the line?
“Watch out, man — The first Polish heavyweight champion of the world,” Kownacki told the media about his ultimate ambition during his post-fight press conference.
He added: “I hope I get that fight. I hope I get a chance to prove myself.”
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That hope could build into full-blown fruition, with Kownacki’s manager and advisor, Keith Connolly, revealing that he has been having talks that could put Kownacki in the ring with Wilder in 2019.
“I think he has one more fight like this and the talks I’ve been having, would be he would be fighting Deontay Wilder at the end of the year — here in this building, most probably, which would be natural,” Connolly revealed to reporters.
Their feeling on it is if Luis Ortiz almost beat Wilder, Kownacki could stop the champ due to him being a busier, more active puncher than Ortiz.
When Sporting News spoke with Kownacki, 29, after his post-fight press conference, he sounded more than confident about doing to Wilder (40-0-1) what Ortiz let slip away: “I’ll be able to pressure him and get a stoppage.”
The three blemishes on Washington’s career are losses against Wilder, Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller and now Kownacki, but for whatever it’s worth, “Babyface” stopped Washington the fastest. And that should give Kownacki some bragging rights over his longtime friend Miller, with the two having come up in the boxing ranks together in Brooklyn.
“For sure,” Kownacki said about some of those bragging rights. “We’re happy for each other.”
And now, with Kownacki staring down a possible collision course with WBC titleholder Wilder and Miller positioning himself to do the same with unified world heavyweight champ Anthony Joshua, “Babyface” and “Big Baby” could have a chance to add gold straps to their resumes this year. Imagine the bragging rights then.
