Stevenson beats Fonfara; Lemieux stops Guerrero; Charlo defeats Ota

By Boxing News - 05/24/2014 - Comments

stevenson455By Dan Ambrose: WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson (24-1, 20 KO’s) defeated Andrzej Fonfara (25-3, 15 KO’s) in a tougher than expected 12 round unanimous decision at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada. Fonfara knocked Stevenson down in the 9th round from a left-right combination. Stevenson dropped Fonfara down twice in the fight in knocked him down with a left to the head in the 1st round, and a left to the body in the 5th. The final judges scores were 115-110, 115-110 and 116-109.

Stevenson looked tired and hurt in the 9th after getting knocked down by Fonfara. However, he was able to clinch his way out of the round.

In the 10th and 11th rounds, Stevenson came on strong to hurt Fonfara with body shots. Fonfara mostly backed up and tried to cover up the onslaught of shots. Stevenson didn’t have the gas or the power to finish him off.

The fight showed pretty clearly that Stevenson would have been deep trouble had he been in the right with WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev.

“I hurt my hand…I’d fight Kovalev,” Stevenson said. “I go down but I came back strong. He got me hurt good. Bernard Hopkins can be next. I’ll let Al Haymon decide. No problem with Kovalev. I have no problem if I fight him, I fight him.”

Stevenson doesn’t have to worry about Kovalev through now that he’s with Showtime, but it’s a good thing that Stevenson moved to Showtime because he would have been in trouble if it had been Kovalev in the ring with him tonight. As it was, Stevenson struggled badly with the light hitting Fonfara.

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#7 IBF, #13 WBC middleweight contender David Lemieux (32-2, 30 KO’s) obliterated Fernando Guerrero (26-3, 19 KO’s) in 3rd rounds on Saturday night in knocking an over-matched Guerrero down four times in the fight. Lemieux put Guerrero down in the 1st, 2nd and twice in the 3rd before the fight was stopped by referee Michael Griffin.

Guerrero suffered a bad cut over his right eye in the 2nd round. It was a lot of blood and it gave Guerrero a lot of trouble trying to see.

“I’m determined to be a world champion. Of course I would like to fight anyone in the world at 160,” Lemieux said after the fight.

Guerrero came into this fight with a reputation for being chinny, as he’s been knocked out recently by Peter Quillin and 40-year-old Grady Brewer. Obviously, Guerrero was picked out by Lemieux’s management due to his chin problems, because if they put him in with someone with a chin, he likely would have lost again.

Lemieux is a decent middleweight, but he’s been exposed in the past when matched against opposition that can take head shots in his losses to Marco Antonio Rubio and Joachim Alcine. Lemieux is a fighter that lives and dies by his knockouts. If you put him in with someone that has power and boxing skills like WBA champion Gennady Golovkin, Lemieux would get destroyed. He might be able to give someone like Peter Quillin or Felix Sturm problems, but if he’s unable to knock them out, he’ll lose because he has terrible stamina.

Lemieux rehydrated 16 pounds and came into the fight tonight weighing 176 pounds. Technically he was a cruiserweight in the ring against Guerrero.

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Unbeaten junior middleweight contender Jermell Charlo (24-0, 11 KO’s) stayed undefeated with a dull 12 round unanimous decision victory over an over-matched and much shorter Charlie Ota (24-2-1, 16 KO’s).. The final judges scores were 115-111, 118-109, and 118-109.

Ota dropped Charlo in the 3rd round with a straight right hand to the head. In the 9th round, Charlo had a point taken off for nailing Ota with a low blow. This was the second time in the fight that Charlo had nailed Ota with a debilitating low blow.

Charlo, 5’11”, spent much of the fight moving around the ring trying to avoid the attacks from the 5’6″ Ota. The crowd was patient for the most part, but they finally got tired of Charlo’s movement and started booing late in the fight. If Charlo is going to be a main event fighter in the future for Showtime, he’s going to need to stop moving as much and stop holding. He spent way too much time in the fight grabbing and running, and it took away from his performance.

If Charlo doesn’t have the chin to stay in place, he’s going to be in trouble because he’s going to have problems against the equally tall Erislandy Lara and the much more powerful Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.



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