By Jim Dower: 43-year-old former IBF light heavyweight champion Glen Johnson (51-17-2, 35 KO’s) has decided to retire after losing by a 10 round unanimous decision to 24-year-old light heavyweight contender Andrzek Fonfara (22-2, 12 KO’s) last night at the UIC Pavilion, in Chicago, Illinois.

After the fight, Johnson said this about his loss as quoted by fightnews.com “I feel like the end of the road is here. Time is undefeated. I see no reason to move forward if I can’t win a fight like this. I won’t achieve my ultimate goal, which is to be a world champion.”

Johnson has fought for a world title in four out of his last seven fights, but unfortunately has lost each time.

Although Johnson fought well enough to deserve a decision, the judges saw it differently, giving Fonfara the win by the lopsided scores of 99-91, 97-93 and 97-93. This is an opponent that a younger Johnson would have likely knocked out in two or three rounds at best, but at 43, Johnson’s ability to overpower his opposition has dropped off recently.

For Johnson, this was his third consecutive defeat and his 5th loss in his last 7 fights. That obviously had a lot to do with Johnson deciding to hang up the gloves after an impressive career. Losing to the likes of Carl Froch, Chad Dawson, Tavoris Cloud and Lucian Bute is one thing, but losing to a contender like Fonfara is quite another. This is someone that’s going to have major problems when/if he fights someone like Dawson, Nathan Cleverly, Beibut Shumenov or Cloud. He’s not in their league, and that’s going to be apparent if he ever fights one of them.