By Keith Idec

Steve Cunningham has already won a cruiserweight world title in Poland.

The Philadelphia native suspects he’ll experience a similar atmosphere when he challenges Krzysztof Glowacki for the WBO cruiserweight championship April 16 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. A large contingent of proud Polish fans figure to fill Barclays Center for Glowacki’s first title defense next month, much the way they did when Glowacki (25-0, 16 KOs) upset Germany’s Marco Huck (39-3-1, 27 KOs) to win the title August 14 at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.

“I know his fan base drives him, and I know he’ll be driven on the 16th,” Cunningham said during a conference call Thursday. “But I’m driven also. This isn’t new territory for me. I’ve fought in Poland twice. I fought in Germany numerous times, South Africa, so I’m really not used to fighting at home.

“When I fight at the Barclays Center, I will be closer to home, but it’s gonna still feel like Poland because his fans are gonna out-number [American fans]. They’re gonna engulf that place and inflame it with cheers of ‘Polska!’ So like I said, it’s not new territory, but a new opponent.”

The 39-year-old Cunningham (28-7, 13 KOs, 1 NC) beat Poland’s Krzysztof Wlodarczyk (50-3-1, 36 KOs) by majority decision to win the IBF cruiserweight crown in May 2007 in Katowice, Poland. Six months earlier, Cunningham lost to Wlodarczyk by split decision in Warsaw for the then-vacant IBF cruiserweight championship.

Cunningham also lost a debatable split decision to Poland’s Tomasz Adamek (50-4, 30 KOs) in December 2008 at Prudential Center, which became Adamek’s adopted home arena during his successful run several years ago.

Before moving back down to cruiserweight, Cunningham fought to a 12-round draw with Antonio Tarver (31-6, 22 KOs, 2 NC) in his last fight. Tarver tested positive for a synthetic testosterone following that August 14 heavyweight bout at Prudential Center, though, and the result was changed to a no-contest.

In the co-feature the night of the Cunningham-Tarver main event, Glowacki got up from a sixth-round knockout to stop Huck in the 11th round of an action-packed battle that was widely viewed as one of the most entertaining fights of 2015.

NBC will televise the Glowacki-Cunningham match as the co-feature before a 12-round welterweight main event that’ll send Errol Spence (19-0, 16 KOs) against Chris Algieri (21-2, 8 KOs).

Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.