Fonfara: I want a rematch with Adonis Stevenson

By Boxing News - 04/19/2015 - Comments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7zuGdT-rJQ
By Dan Ambrose: A day after his total wipeout of former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (48-2-1, 32 KOs), #4 WBC 175 pound contender Andrzej Fonfara (27-3, 16 KOs) has seen his stock soar sky high with the victory at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.

While Chavez Jr. is talking about wanting a rematch, Fonfara has his sights set on getting a rematch against WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson. Fonfara has a very good chance of getting another shot at Stevenson after the destruction job he did on Chavez Jr.

Stevenson will likely give Fonfara a second shot because he really has no one else to fight right now due to Sergey Kovalev and his promoter at Main Events pulling out of their purse bid and saying that a fight between them would need to take place on HBO. With the confidence that Fonfara got from his win over Chavez Jr, he might give Stevenson more problems than he did the first time.

fonfara647Stevenson is getting older and Fonfara is just now hitting his prime. He was able to knock Stevenson down in their fight last year, and he might be able to do a better job the next time if he’s able to crowd Stevenson and land a lot of short punches like he was able to go to Chavez Jr.

“I want a rematch with Adonis Stevenson,” Fonfara said. “I knew he was a tough fighter, quick and in good shape but when he [Chavez Jr] hit me for the first time in the first round, I knew I was going to win this fight. He didn’t punch as hard as everybody said he did. I saw his punches easily coming in. I know I threw more punches.”

Chavez Jr. landed some really huge punches every now and then. The power on his shots looked equal to some of the best punches Stevenson was hitting Fonfara with. The difference is that Chavez Jr. was punching a lot slower, and wasn’t throwing his big power shots enough to bother Fonfara.

If Chavez Jr. was able to throw his best punches over and over again like Stevenson then Fonfara would have been in trouble last night. But Chavez Jr. kept spacing out his big shots, and taking ages to set them up while working his feet into the proper position to let his big shots fly.

“I was a little surprised that he did not come out for the (10th) but he was cut, had been getting beat up and had just got knocked down, so he knew what would happen if he came out,” Fonfara said. “Chavez said before the fight that he didn’t think I could take his body punches. I think I took them pretty good and passed that test.”

Chavez Jr. soaked up some awful punishment through the nine rounds of the fight. It’s really not that surprising that he quit on his stool in between rounds rather than coming out for the 10th. Chavez Jr. must have had a pretty good idea what would have happened had he come out for the round so he didn’t even bother taking the chance. He had been knocked down badly by a left hand by Fonfara in the 10th. Chavez Jr. did a good job of coming back from the knockdown to land some nice shots, but he looked really tired at the end of the round.

“I know there are things I can still work on in training to become a more complete boxer, but tonight was a dream come true,” Fonfara said.

What was different about Fonfara from this fight than the ones in the past was the way he was able to throw a lot of fast, short punches to the head and body of Chavez Jr. Due to the shortness of the shots, Fonfara didn’t get the kind of power on them as he normally does, but he was able to still hit with excellent power. By throwing a lot of punches, he gave Chavez Jr. a really bad beating. If Fonfara can fight like that against Stevenson in a rematch, he’ll have a better chance of winning. He still probably will lose the fight, but he’ll really work Stevenson over until then.



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