By Michael Woods

He is 41 years old, past his prime time as an athlete, and there is no shortage of folks out there who think Tomasz Adamek shouldn’t be gloving up.

At 53-5, the Polish fighting fixture, who turned pro in 1999, won crowns at light heavyweight and jumped to cruiserweight in 2007, and won a title there as well. He didn’t stop there; the Pole in 2009 went to heavyweight, and has stayed there ever since. He called it quits, at the end of 2014 after a loss to Artur Szpilka, but changed his mind, as warriors oft do, and gloved up again the following fall.

Adamek, a right-handed banger, beat Prrzemyslaw Saleta, then dropped his next outing, to Eric Molina. He’s on a three fight win streak, and will be stepping up in class after downing Solomon Haumono, Fred Kassi and Joey Abell.

On October 6, in Chicago, Adamek is set to tangle with Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller, who is on the upper tier of active heavyweights, somewhere Adamek hasn’t been in many a moon.

So, all the well meaning folks, or maybe you think they are busy-bodies, are saying that this fight is a mismatch, that Adamek should not be participating. Promoter Dmitriy Salita, who handles Miller, talked to BoxingScene.com about the chatter surrounding the heavyweight faceoff, which takes place on the first DAZN card put together in America by Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom.

Adamek is not, for the record, being promoted by Main Events, previously his United State home-base in helping him find and hype fights.

Salita is working with Hearn on the Oct. 6 show and handles Miller, as well as Claressa Shields, and a mushrooming roster of talent, many of them Russian.

“Adamek is a two time world champion and has competed at a high level for a long time at heavyweight,” Salita said, when asked about the chatter that Adamek is in over his head.

“It takes a special kind of athlete to be able to do [what Adamek did]. He has wins over AndrewGolota, ChrisAreolla, Eddie Chambers, lots of quality on that resume. He lost via a 10 round TKO to Vitali Klitschko for the WBC heavyweight world title. He is a quality guy, look at his resume at heavyweight…. so age is just a number and he is no one to take lightly! With that being said, I feel Jarrell is the best heavyweight in the world. So no matter if it’s Wilder or Joshua across the ring from him he is going to knock you out!”