By Jim Dower: WBC cruiserweight Krzysztof Wlodarczyk (49-2-1, 35 KO’s) had an easy time stopping 44-year-old Italian Giacobbe Fragomeni (31-4-2, 12 KOs) by a 6th round stoppage on Friday night at the UIC Pavilion in Chicago, Illinois. The fight was halted after the 6th round due to a large cut under Fragomeni’s left eye. At the time of the stoppage, the 32-year-old Wlodarczyk had been easily winning the fight against the much shorter 5’9″ Fragomeni.
There wasn’t much interesting action in the fight other than in the 4th round when Wlodarczyk hit Fragomeni with a left hook while the referee was trying to break the two apart from a clinch. The shot hit Fragomeni when he wasn’t ready for it and dropped him. It wasn’t much of a punch but it was clearly thrown while the referee was breaking the two fighters apart.
At the time, Fragomeni was twisted with his back to Wlodarczyk to where he couldn’t see him. The referee blew it by taking a point off from Wlodarczyk for what appeared to be a foul. What made it much worse was that Fragomeni was cut by the shot and the cut eventually caused the stoppage of the fight. The referee missed that as well, and it’s disappointing if you’re a Fragomeni fan. However, he was clearly over-matched in this fight and he wasn’t going to win it due to his lack of size, power and youth.
Most of the rounds involved Fragomeni slowly plodding forward throwing body and head shots and landing occasionally. Wlodarczyk did a good job of getting out of the way of the shots by moving around. Wlodarczyk threw a lot of shots, but he wasn’t putting a lot of power on most of them.
This was a much easier fight for Wlodarczyk than his recent win over #1 WBC Rakhim Chakhkiev. That was a real battle for 8 back and forth rounds until Wlodarczyk stopped him in the 8th.
Things could get tough for Wlodarczyk in the near future when he has to fight #4 WBC Thabiso Mchunu. This guy is a lot faster than Wlodarczyk and probably the best contender in the cruiserweight division. He’s quick, powerful and not easy to hit. We could see Wlodarczyk lose his title to Mchunu when that fight takes place. It looks like Wlodarczyk has a little more time before he’s forced to fight him, but he’s going to have a lot of problems when that fight is eventually made.
After last night’s fight when asked if he wants to fight the other cruiserweight champions Marco Huck and Yoan Pablo Hernandez, Wlodarczyk said “Why not?”
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In the co-feature, IBF #1 light heavyweight contender Andrzej Fonfara (25-2, 15 KOs) destroyed an less than energetic looking 34-year-oldr Samuel Miller (26-8, 23 KOs). Fonfara knocked the super middleweight Miller down with what looked to be a jab moments after Miller had nailed him with a rabbit punch to the back of the head. It was a nothing jab that hit Miller, but he fell down, shock his head and the fight was stopped. Miller just didn’t look like he wanted to be there in this fight. In the 1st round, Fonfara bent Miller over by leaning on him to where he was bent over with his face halfway down to the canvas. At this point, Fonfara hit Miller with a right hand low. Miller dropped down in pain and clutched at his groin to show the referee he had been hit low. However, the referee still ruled it a knockdown. He evidently hadn’t seen the low shot, so he let Fonfara get away with a clear low blow.
Fonfara is the #1 IBF mandatory for Bernard Hopkins. He’s not good enough to beat Hopkins, but at 26, he can wait him out until he retires and pick up his IBF belt. The IBF doesn’t have any quality contenders ranked in the top 15, so that will give Fonfara a good chance to capture that title in a year or two. Fonfara isn’t in the same league as the better light heavyweight champions Sergey Kovalev and Adonis Stevenson, but he’ll never have to worry fighting them given that he’s ranked by the IBF.
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