By David Lahr: In a case of playing possum gone bad, former contestant on reality TV show “The Contender,” Anthony Bonsante (31-10-3, 18 KOs) was dropped and taken out in the 1st round by undefeated prospected Adonis Stevenson (12-0, 9 KOs) on Friday night at the Gare Windsor Salle des Pas Perdus, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Stevenson, 30 landed a glancing left hand in the opening seconds of the bout, knocking Bonsante flat on the canvas. However, instead of immediately getting up, given the less than powerful shot that he was hit with, Bonsante stayed down, keeping his eyes closed tight until the count of six, at which point he jumped up just as referee Gerry Bolen was stopped that fight at 0:46 of the 1st round.
Bonsante, 37, immediately began arguing with the referee, saying that he had gotten up in time and that he had in fact beaten the count. The referee, however, pointed out that his eyes were closed, and that he had looked hurt, which is obviously why the referee stopped the fight. Bonsante then angrily walked away after saying a few more choice words to the referee. Clearly, Bonsante wasn’t happy with the stoppage, feeling that he had made it up before the 10 count.
However, from the referee’s perspective, Bonsante looked completely unconscious from the punch, and had his eyes closed until he reached the count of six. In many cases, a referee would immediately stop a fight like this with a fighter with their eyes closed. It seemed more than a little strange that Bonsante would be daring enough to risk losing the fight by playing knocked out like this, because he had to know from seeing other fights, that he had a good chance of losing if he did this.
If he didn’t know this, then perhaps Bonsante needs to watch a few more fights and study what referees typically do when they have a fighter that has been knocked down and has his eyes closed for several seconds, as if knocked out. Up until the left hand landed from Stevenson, the only action in the round was from Stevenson who landed a series of strong jabs to the head of Bonsante. However, when Bonsante attempted to move in to land one of his own shots, he carelessly walked straight into the lead hand from Stevenson, which glanced off the left side of Bonsante’s forehead knocking him down.
It was more of a case of him not expecting the punch and being knocked off balance than actually hurt, though, which is why it seemed so bizarre for Bonsante to stay down and seemingly feign as if he were hurt. I guess he figured he would jump up and surprise Stevenson with a sudden frenzy of activity by coming back to life. I doubt it would have had any effect whatsoever on Stevenson, for even if Bonsante did do that, he didn’t have the kind of power to do much damage to Stevenson no matter what kind of tricks he played in there.
Stevenson would have probably been surprised, I admit, but he would have just as quickly understood it was a trick and would have began landing his big power shots without any problem. Either way, I think Bonsante would have been knocked out early in the bout. That’s not to say that Stevenson is a world beater, because I think he’d be vulnerable against most of the top super middleweights like Mikkel Kessler and Lucian Bute, who would out-box him and tie him in knots with ease. Bonsante, though, didn’t have the kind of boxing skills like Bute and Kessler that he would have needed to beat a power puncher like Stevenson.
Hopefully for Bonsantes’s sake, he learns his lesson from this fight. It was a mistake, if he really wasn’t hurt, to stay down the way he did. Nine times out of ten, a referee would do the same thing that this referee did, and stop the fight quickly without finishing the count. When a fighter is as hurt as Bonsante looked, a referee can’t afford to risk wasting time by counting when there’s a danger of serious injury.