In the main event of the May 24th broadcast of Showtime Championship Boxing, Adonis Stevenson (24-1, 20 knockouts) hoped to become the next great Canadian champion with an exciting win over little-known Andrzej Fonfara (25-3, 15 knockouts). Fortunately for Stevenson he successfully managed to retain his titles, but did little to prove that he has what it takes to truly carry the torch left by fighters before him.
The fight began in the manner in which many had expected. Both fighters came out active, but it was Stevenson who had already managed to immediately drop his opponent. Following the eight-count Stevenson attempted to capitalize on his hurt opponent, but much to Fonfara’s credit he managed to survive the round while standing toe-to-toe with the heavy-handed Canadian.
Things didn’t seem to get much better for Fonfara as the following rounds saw Stephenson continue to batter him around the ring. Fonfara remained standing however, and it wasn’t until a fifth round flurry to the body that Fonfara managed to once again taste the canvas.
By this point in the fight there was little to no help left for the few fans that could be heard cheering for Fonfara. After all, Stephenson seemed to be cruising to a dominant decision victory and was also finding some new success with the aforementioned body attack and incredibly successful use of uppercuts.
Just as the bout was beginning to grow stale, Fonfara managed to do the unthinkable and knocked Stevenson down in the final forty seconds of round nine. Fonfara did his best to score the upset, but Stevenson managed to clinch on for dear life and survived the round.
Following the dramatic high-note that was the ninth round, Stevenson went right back to his calculated and fairly dominant approach to fighting Fonfara. Following the end of twelve rounds, Stevenson was awarded the unanimous decision victory on scores of (115-110), (115-110), and (116-109).
It certainly wasn’t the performance Stevenson wanted for his Showtime debute, and it certainly wasn’t going to quell the talk of him “ducking” Kovalev, but at the end of the day he still managed to walk out with titles intact. All signs point to a fight with Bernard Hopkins being on the horizong, but following this performance there will be a bunch of fighters lining up to take a shot at “Superman” especially after looking so human.
