‘Babyface’ delivers crushing blow at Nassau Coliseum

Bellmore-based boxer wins Saturday fight

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Amid the pulsing adrenaline rush that boxer Adam Kownacki said he experiences during a match, the 28-year-old heavyweight from Melville, also known as “Babyface,” hears “a whole lot of Polish people yelling my name, screaming my name.”

Kownacki, who trains at Bellmore Kickboxing MMA, won his fight against former title challenger Artur Szpilka in four rounds at Nassau Coliseum on July 15, maintaining his undefeated status as a professional boxer.

What set the match apart from Kownacki’s other bouts, he said, was that Szpilka is also Polish-born. “The only option is to win,” Kownacki told the Herald before the fight.


The first round revealed each fighter’s strategy, with Kownacki pressuring Szpilka against the ropes. Szpilka, meanwhile, focused on landing short punches and evading his opponent.

The next round left Kownacki with a swollen eye, but he threw a succession of jabs at Szpilka in the third. Kownacki came out on top in the final round, slamming Szpilka in the nose and, after another series of punches, scoring a technical knockout when his opponent fell to the ring floor.

The victory not only secured him a spot in a title match, but also boosted his global ranking on the boxing records site, Boxrec, from 32nd to 11th. Kownacki entered the fight with 15 wins — 12 of which were knockouts — and no losses.

“My family doesn’t allow [the success] to get to my head,” Kownacki said, crediting those who have supported him, including the community at Bellmore Kickboxing MMA and Keith Trimble, his trainer at the multi-use gym.

Kownacki and his family emigrated from Poland when he was 7, to the Polish district of Greenpoint, Brooklyn. As a child, he was enamored of Andrew Golota, a Polish-born boxer who competed for a heavyweight world title four times. Kownacki said that Golota’s success inspired him because they had similar backgrounds.

“It made me think I could achieve that too,” he said.

Kownacki started training at 14 and, after a year, fought in his first amateur match. He earned championship titles in 2006 and 2009 at the New York Golden Gloves, a professional tournament for upcoming fighters, and in 2007 and 2008, he finished in second place. In total, he won 23 of his 30 fights as an amateur boxer.

After Kownacki started gaining attention as a professional boxer, a friend recommended that he train with Trimble in Bellmore. This coincided with Kownacki’s move from Greenpoint to Melville roughly a year ago.

The boxer said that he was initially nervous to leave the semi-urban Polish community for a suburban one. Unknown to him, however, Kownacki had his own Long Island fan base. “Just as many people recognized me here as they do in Greenpoint,” he said.

While he has climbed the ladder of success as a boxer, Kownacki said that he still has a long way to go. “I’m going to be a world champion, he said. “That’s always been my goal.”