By Mark Hepplestall: Stephan Foster Jr (28-3-1, 18 KO’s) tonight lost his European Super-Featherweight title tonight to Ernano Fegatilli (23-4-0, 5 KO’s) to a unanimous 12 round decision, yet the fight possibly should have been stopped anywhere from the 9th to the 12th. Previously in the weigh in people noticed a very dry and jaded Foster Jr when compared to his Belgian opponent and this was very noticeable in the fight tonight. The man who many call the doctor speaks 5 languages, has a master’s degree in economics and prides himself on his analytical problem solving skills, this was very clear to see tonight.
The fight started with the champion Foster Jr dominating the first half of the fight like he does in the majority of his bouts, in fact it would be accurate to point out Foster was having all of the early success with shots to the body and overall making the match into more of a brawl then a clinical boxing match. The problem with Foster Jr is clear; he is just too much bulk for the Super-Featherweight Division. He is a good boxer for the first 6 rounds and most of his knock outs are in the first 6, but after this he has problems with his stamina and therefore suffers.
In the middle rounds The Doctor was making Foster miss and was outworking Foster, the jab was good and he changed his style of attack from the head to the body quickly. Foster was having huge problems breathing before the more damaging shots in the second half of the fight occurred, it was surprising that his corner were not watching this, Foster was getting trapped in the corners taking clear shots and coming back missing wildly looking for the one big punch, he showed good bravery but was well out of his depth due to the weight problems.
In the second half of the fight is was hard to give a round to Foster, he was outworked, outfought and out-boxed. The combination of Foster’s awful stamina and The Doctor’s clinical body shots caused clear damage in every round from rounds 8 to 11. In fact there was a knockdown in each of these rounds due to body shots. Foster kept getting up after taking 8 seconds to get his breath and continued showing immense bravery, however the fight possibly should have been stopped in round 10 after the 3 knockdowns or in round 11 after another 2 knockdowns all due to body shots, yet for some reason Foster’s corner did not throw in the towel and the referee saw Foster able to continue so Foster continued to see the final bell but lost by wide unanimous decision.
So now Ernano Fegatilli holds the European title and possibly after one or two defences he will be in a good position to fight against Ricky Burns for the WBO Super Featherweight world title.